Hagel v Clinton

From Ari Melber at The Nation:

In a conference call with major donors Thursday, former President Bill Clinton challenged the netroots for backing Barack Obama as an anti-war candidate, according to The Hill newspaper.

While avoiding any direct criticism of Obama's statements, Clinton said it was "ludicrous" to treat "Hillary and Obama's positions on the war as polar opposites." Then he tried to fact-check the netroots:    

"This dichotomy that's been set up to allow [Obama] to become the raging hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet is just factually inaccurate."

The Hill reports that Clinton continued, "It's just not fair to say that people who voted for the resolution wanted war," and he argued that Hillary's defense of her war vote is similar to Chuck Hagel, who remains popular in the antiwar community.

First, I should say that, as Matt Yglesias has pointed out repeatedly, I don't think Hillary Clinton's going to get very far pretending she's as antiwar as Barack Obama (or even as antiwar as John Edwards). It's a pretty embarrassing posture for her to take, actually.

But more substantively, Bill Clinton's comparison of Hillary and Chuck Hagel on the Iraq war--which he made on the basis of their concordance on a single vote--is a little bit ridiculous and a little bit maddening. Let me say first that if it came down to the two of them in the presidential race, I'd still throw my support to Hillary. I believe that both candidates would end the war rapidly, I don't think either of them would be able to conduct a particularly belligerent foreign policy in the 4 (or even 8) years after Iraq, and Hagel's pretty wretchedly conservative on almost every other issue. 

But in the meantime, words matter, and Hillary's words show her to be a more war-hungry public figure than Chuck Hagel. Hillary has, it's been noted before, supported every war of her adult life. On Israel, Hagel talks about the importance of establishing a Palestinian state, while Hillary says that the interests of Israel are one and the same as the interests of the United States. On Iran, while Hagel emphasizes the importance of diplomacy, Hillary says that Iran can not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Neither of one's positions necessarily contradict the other's, but their postures (words) are the issue, and hers rankle me and will rankle the rest of the free world.

That's why Hagel has support among Democratic anti-war activists. Because he's more anti-war than Hillary Clinton. Hagel probably also has support within the Club of Growth for his tax policies and within the pro-life community because of his stance on abortion. That's what activists do. They march with those who agree with them.