Clinton's war conundrum

There's a fascinating piece of political lore that tells the story of Hillary Clinton pulling John Kerry aside in the Senate cloak room before his fateful 'no' vote on the Iraq funding bill back in 2003. That is, of course, the vote that sparked his politically devastating comment about voting for the $87 billion before he voted against it. The story goes that Clinton told him that he really needed to vote 'yes' on the bill, even though the ant-war sentiments of Howard Dean seemed to account for Dean's lead in the 2004 Democratic primary polls. Her feeling was that voting against the funding after voting for the war would be a political kiss of death.

Whether or not that story is true, it's very interesting in light of Clinton's 'no' vote on yesterday's war funding bill. Clinton, like Kerry before her, sees a Democratic primary with highly energized anti-war voters. Her real problem, however, is that her position on the war perhaps makes even less sense than Kerry's did in 2004. She voted for the war. She has consistently defended that vote, much to the chagrin of the far-left anti-war crowd. Now she votes against funding the war. She says that her vote was the right thing to do at the time, but that Bush misused the authority given him by the congress. Now she says that she voted against funding the war because it's time to get out. I can't see how this will resonate either in a primary or a general election. Look for the war issue to continue to haunt her campaign. It's the classic case of going the way the wind is blowing and finding yourself lost. I see her coveting the consistent anti-war positions of Obama and others in the primary and the consistent pro-war positions of her eventual Republican opponent in the general election. Personally, I don't know what she's thinking.