I was reading another diary "Top 10 Inane Profane & otherwise Flame arguments used versus Hillary Clinton " and took issue with the writer's (no.9) argument that the Iraq war is Bush's war and no one else's... especially not Hillary's. My response got a little passionate and my comment on the thread was getting long, so I decided to post my response as a diary here. No disrespect is meant towards the author of the original diary.

Yes, Iraq is Bush's war. It'll ultimately be on his head, and it will always be linked with his name.  But this war belongs to a lot of us.  It belongs to Cheney, to Rumsfeld, to Powell, to Tenet.  It belongs to the NYT and CNN and FOX.  It belongs to every American who allowed the post 9/11 hysteria to  sweep them up and away from critical thinking and patriotic skepticism. It belongs to everyone who chose to ignore the thousands on the streets who knew Bush was lying and had a hard-on for war.

And it belongs to a lot of Democrats.  It belongs to Feinstein, Biden, and Reid. It belongs to Kerry and Edwards. Whether for political expediency or a return to rationality, at least Kerry/Edwards apologized.  Though unsure if that apology is really enough, I tried to forgive them and decided that they are at least better than their Republican opponents.

Here's some people this war doesn't belong to: Gore, Obama, or Dean. They were well-informed enough to denounce the war early on and have spoken out against it ever since. Neither does the war belong to Germany, France, Russia, Canada, or the majority of our allies who knew this was an imperial play that would end in disaster.  It also doesn't belong to the majority of House Democrats who rejected the clearly titled "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq".  

It doesn't belong to the only Republican Senator who voted against the Authorization.  In Lincoln Chafee's recent book, he commented on pro-war Democrats, "They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment."

The war in Iraq doesn't belong to the 32 Democratic senators who voted against the Authorization.  It doesn't belong to Boxer, Byrd, Feingold, or Kennedy. It certainly doesn't belong to Carl Levin.  He introduced the Levin Amendment that called for additional Congressional approval before a unilateral (that is, non-UN sanctioned) attack.  In other words, it called for more diplomacy.  Hillary Clinton voted against that measure, even though she now claims that she supported AUMF because she thought that would somehow lead to more diplomacy.

So, yes, the war also belongs to Hillary. She placed herself squarely among the minority of congressional Democrats who voted for the bill.  Was hers just one vote?  Yes.  It was one vote from one of the most prominent and influential Democrats in the Senate. It was a vote from a former First Lady. It was a vote from a likely presidential candidate. It was a weighty vote, and it likely gave cover to Democrats unsure of which way they might go. Worse, it was an enabling vote for Bush.  A Clinton vote for a Bush war effectively mainstreamed our country's march into Baghdad.

So far, no apologies. Hillary Clinton is basing her candidacy on experience, yet she still has been unable to apologize a vote for the war that people are dying in today. Rather than an apology, there are excuses. She says she believed Bush, as if that's supposed to make us feel better. Rather than an apology, there's the "I know you are but what am I" tactic of somehow making Obama complicit by the fact that he hasn't voted to defund the troops while they are still in harm's way.

For me, this is a defining issue. Any politician who voted for a clearly unnecessary war should make any voter think twice. If a presidential candidate can't grasp the basic principle that you don't attack a country that has not attacked you, then he or she  fails a very basic litmus test. Whether Hillary was duped  (unlikely) or going with the prevailing winds with an eye towards her political future (bingo!), it reveals a decided lack of leadership. Yes, Bush owns this war.  So does Senator Clinton.

..............

Before the assault begins, let me say that I was not an automatic Obama supporter. I didn't decide who I would choose up til the night of Feb. 4. There was even a chance that if Hillary would somehow own up to her mistake, I would have given her a second look (there's a lot I've admired about her). Given her subsequent  behavior in the primaries, I've become quite comfortable with my choice and I'm absolutely thrilled that the next president could very well be someone who, like me and so many others, knew Iraq was an immoral tragedy in the making.

Daily Kos strikers outraged and shocked (shocked!) at the ever-harsher rhetoric against Hillary Clinton should keep in mind that the Daily Kos  has never been a fan of the Clintons. It's  always been unfavorable to DLC backed candidates. She was never going to do well there.

Daily Kos has long been lukewarm at best towards Hillary. Her votes on the bankruptcy bill, the cluster bomb bill, etc. made her suspect to many.  Her grandstanding on issues like flag burning hasn't helped much either. Her 2002 Iraq vote was the nail in the coffin.

If you look at various polls within Daily Kos, you'll see that Hillary was always at the bottom, regardless of who was at the top. In other words, a lot of this hasn't been Obama vs. Hillary, but rather any decent Democrat vs. Hillary.  Until recently, Obama hardly ranked either.  I believe the initial favorite was Gore, then Edwards.  Only since Edwards dropped out has Obama's support gotten so strong.

Finally, it's undeniable that it was Hillary who decided to drag this thing down. The infuriating thing about her 3am ad and all the other attacks is that they seem to be designed to hand over the frontrunner's head to the GOP. Say what you will about anti-Hillary chatter in the blogs, but Obama has pretty much been mild in his attacks, so much so that his supporters are begging him to fight harder.  No one in Hillary's camp has been complaining that she's been too soft.

It's not going to get better. Paraphrasing Hillary, we're just getting warmed up. The primaries are dragging on, and looming in the horizon are nastier attacks, the Michigan and Florida debacle, as well as whatever new tactic the Clinton campaign has to get around the unfavorable math of the pledged (ahem, "automatic") delegates. In this, the party is splitting and the so-called blogoshpere is reflecting that: Daily Kos has settled on its "anyone but Hillary" candidate, and MyDD is showing an equal level of vitriol in support of Senator Clinton.  This is the "fun part", is it not?

Everyone keeps talking about the delegate math being insurmountable for Hillary, but clearly she would not still be in the race if she did not think she could beat it. Her campaign has already broadcast how. She'll tear down her opponent, tear apart (if she must) the Democratic Party, and then deal with the general election when she gets there.

It's obvious that her goal in the primaries is to win Pennsylvania by continuing the kind of campaigning that was effective for her in Ohio and Texas. She is going to continue to throw the "kitchen sink" at Obama for the next seven or so weeks. The media, no doubt, will eat it up. By then, Obama will be sufficiently weakened and tarred for new primaries in Michigan and Florida. Watch her "concern" for Democracy grow louder and louder as these states figure more and more into her strategy of changing the rules that no longer suit her. After pulling ahead in these states, she'll ask the superdelegates to fall in line.

So far, so good. She's not bad at short and mid-term thinking. It's thinking in the long-term that kills her. She had a plan for 'Super Tuesday', but not for what might happen afterwards. Likewise, it seems like her new plan could get her to the Democratic Convention, but doesn't take into account how her behavior in the primaries affects her chances in the general.

Make no mistake, if Hillary keeps playing it how she has this week, the party will end up watching its best opportunity in decades go down in flames. Democrats will be reminded of the 50% of Americans who say they will never vote for her. Crossover independents and Republicans will not materialize. Many of the new voters Obama brought in will no-show. Her scorched earth tactics will have turned off large percentages of significant core Democratic groups, in particular African Americans, younger voters, and progressives.

When the electorate is asked in November "who do you want answering the phone at 3am", it will be a McCain ad. Unsurprisingly, much of the general electorate will decide a grizzled vet is better prepared to be Commander-in-Chief than a 6 year Senator/former First Lady. By Hillary's own standards of "experience", it's McCain who should be President, not her. She even spent this week running around praising McCain over her Democratic opponent. Given her initial support for the Iraq war, she'll have no traction on that issue either.

It's too bad that Hillary's tactics in the last week have proven so effective. If only it was the nice version of Hillary that was winning places like Ohio. That's the Hillary that could win the election against McCain, and that's the Hillary that could bring around Obama supporters. Unfortunately, it's the nasty one who is getting results now. There's no reason to believe she won't continue on that track. Hillary's found her voice... again. It's a recipe for a Clinton nomination and a McCain presidency.