2008 Um, Sen. Clinton?
posted by on April 21 at 21:31 PM
Please tell me there’s some context I’m missing here. I wouldn’t put it past ABC to artfully select the most aggro portion of your quote to get people to watch Good Morning America tomorrow, but then again, you’ve been pretty consistently aggro on Iran.
“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said [in an interview set to air on GMA]. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”
So far, news organizations seem to be picking up on the “totally obliterate them” part. It is scary language. But what about the whole IF I’m the president, THEN we’ll attack Iran part? That’s a fucked up conditional statement right there.
UPDATE, Tuesday morning: Clearly, Clinton meant to say IF Iran uses nuclear weapons against Israel, AND I’m the president, THEN we’ll attack Iran. That’s fine. In the future, I vow not to read politics blogs after watching horrible romantic comedies like Made of Honor, and Hillary Clinton should really vow not to attempt to compete with Mahmoud Ahmadenijad in the apocalyptic imagery Olympics.
Re: Sen./Mrs.—the NYT and some other copycats use Mrs. I changed it to Sen.
So IF Hillary intends to attack Iran and IF McCain also wants to attack Iran AND Hillary and McCain are our choices this fall, THEN we are going to war with Iran one way or the other.
Did she make that underbite thing with her jaw like the wrestlers do when they're mugging for the camera before a bout? Did she growl and bark? Did she escalate from "obliterate" to "mutilate"? And then invent some new word that was a combination of the sounds from "mutilate" and "obliterate"?
No? She didn't do any of that? Well it's not just politics then. She's going to attack.
We're gonna be mega-frak'd when she names Toby Keith VP.
Oh, those pathetic post-menopausal women who de-sex themselves for their careers. It's really nothing a tube of K-Y and a ride on a cowboy won't cure.
Forget about gravity, it's just a losing battle. It's all about combating the dryness....
Maybe she was referring to this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/10/AR2008041003271_pf.html
It's an article by Charles Krauthamer. He suggests that the following should be the policy of the US: "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran."
Not sure I agree with that, but it's an interesting concept. His article gives more context.
Annie left out the key sentence {sentence one below] from the part of the link she quoted:
[sentence one]"ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. [sentence two]'I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran,' Clinton said. [sentence 3]'In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.'
Leaving out "if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons" changes the meaning of the selected words that were quoted [sentences 2 and 3]. Makes it seem like HRC said she'd nuke Iran for no reason!
Nice and provocative. Gee, those old-standby tricks like quoting people out of context sure work well. Nice old style politics!
Would this be the context you're looking for?
She totally has my vote.
Yeah, I'm sure this totally shocks the Iranians. "Wha? If we attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, the U.S. would turn our country into a large crater?"
Any fucking moron knows that. But please keep rattling your saber at Iran, Hillary. That won't embolden the fundamentalist assholes in that country at all, just like Bush's saber rattling hasn't emboldened them at all.
@6,
For once, UnPC is right - at least in terms of the context the remark occurred in.
Notwithstanding that, though - Israel already has nukes (which is way more than you can say about Iran) and is perfectly capable of defending itself (and - unlike NATO and the Cold War - I don't believe that we have a specific treaty obligation to nuke someone who nukes Israel).
So the statement was indeed reckless, just not as reckless as the original post tried to imply. And given that we could use a few friends in the Middle East now (like, say, an emerging younger generation of Iranians with pro-Western sympathies), the whole "obliterate" crack probably did us no good there, either.
Why not use more of our troops to defend a nuclear power? I guess our military just can't be spread thin enough these days.
ECB's going to be late for work tomorrow, Dan. She'll be up all night looking for some out-of-context quote from Obama that indicates he might at some point also bomb/go to war with/fuck up Iran. Or somewhere. Or is a mysoginist.
Sounds like someone wants to build a larger navy, air force, and keep the military industrial complex going fine while our country goes broke ...
Just be glad she's not saying "when I'm President" anymore.
There really is no difference between Clinton and McCain, is there? They both oscillate between smarmy kissing-up and testosterone-fueled warmongering. I'll be some Republicans are wishing they hadn't demonized the Clintons so badly in the 80's; she would be a perfect VP candidate for McCain were it not for her unfortunate last name.
Annie, I know you don't like Clinton, but it's pretty bizarre that you'd ignore the context that's RIGHT IN THE SUBHEAD of the piece you linked. Much as I think the media distorts the news about Hillary, that's hardly "artful" misrepresentation on ABC's part.
s/will/would. This is a rather common gramatical construct among Americans, for whom the subjuctive mood is just way too complicated and philosophical.
Real news value? Zero. Political mudslinging value? Priceless.
AIPAC/PNAC '08
such bullshit. it's been a non-stop shitstorm of disinformation to demonize iran and set them up for phase 3 of the mideast agenda. hopefully, this administration has been neutered enough that it'll be unable to achieve this goal before january '09. but watch...
completely fucked up. the iranians do not vote for the US president, so they cannot be responsible for a bunch of idiot north-americans voting an idiot into the white house. yet, they will be OBLITERATed by a menopausal old lady or an old republican. nice. who do you think you are???????
The Muslim and the Negro only live on our planet bt our leave. If we elect Barry Hussein, we cannot trust him to deal with his Muslim brethren in the proper manner. Only Hillary Clinton has the foresight and the courage to say how we need to deal with these people. If she says wiping Iran off the face of the planet is necessary for the continued glory of her Presidency, then so be it.
All of you are simply afraid of strong womyn. This is simply revealing the misogynistic bias here at the Stranger. No one Dan Savage continues to employ that hideous feminist parody ECB. He hates woman so he seeks to portray them as poorly as possible.
When Hillary takes office, you'll all be sorry.
I agree with you that this statement is fucked up severely in many different ways, but shouldn't we still refer to her as Senator Clinton? just sayin'...
All this talk about whether we should bomb Iran if they should bomb Israel is just posturing to appeal to the pro-Israel lobby. Because, let's be honest here, do you think Israel would ever allow Iran to get to that point? Israel is hardly a defenseless country, they would "obliterate" Iran (with or without US approval) before it would ever come to that I'm sure.
Oh my God. Did ECB, of all people, really just complain about distortion of a candidate's words? Really?
@17 Knowledge IS power!
@21 Completely legitimate to refer to her as Mrs. Clinton. The media regularly favors the locution Mr. Bush or Mr. Clinton or Mr. Obama. I don't know if this is a style issue or not, but I am curious.
@17 Knowledge IS power!
@21 Completely legitimate to refer to her as Mrs. Clinton. The media regularly favors the locution Mr. Bush or Mr. Clinton or Mr. Obama. I don't know if this is a style issue or not, but I am curious.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/the-early-word-casey-to-endorse-obama/index.html?ex=1364443200&en=91037fdd25d1e8ec&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
someone needs to teach me how to be more tech savvy.
ahhh the question from cuomo was,
"what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. "
please, if iran attacked israel, even obama( who i support) would launch an attack against iran. even the dogs on the street know that.
the question was a no win for anybody.
And no, she did not unequivocably say she would nuke them. We can do a lot of damage with regular bombs.
I'm still convinced that ABC is doing her bidding. Her position is to be tough, kicking ass at 3 a.m.
ABC just reflects the unstable, fundametalist warlusting nation this country is becoming. Most of the time, they're God and Disney. Around elections, they're running an attack ad on the one candidate for change (in the guise of a debate) and doing mockumentaries about 9/11.
It's kind of a moot point. Israel is a nuclear power with plenty of missiles and warheads. Iran knows this, which is one of the reasons they're building nukes (or at least trying to get the capability), and plain old deterrence will keep them from any such attack.
@28 maybe if it was the general election, but in a democratic primary where the overall sentiment of the country's democrats is anti war, than theyre not doing her any favors.
the question was stupid. a nuclear attack on israel would be world war 3.
The real issue is if a non-state actor like Al Qaeda pops a nuke in Israel, and Iran doesn't have a solid alibi -- or contrarily, if they do it, but DO have one. If there's even a hint of confusion over who's responsible, Israel's going to be in a very difficult position indeed -- Do we respond? Against whom do we respond? If there's any doubt at all, or even if there isn't, their enemies will have the upper hand. They can't retaliate. But Iran, and the various terror groups, whether they're supported by Iran or not, have no such scruples.
Trust me, someone is going to have to have an answer to this conundrum, because it's absolutely certain to happen someday.
@21: The "Mrs." is not intended to be disrespectful. The style of the NY Times and some other media outlets is to use those titles with the person's last name (Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Hussein). They do refer to the person by title on first reference, but use courteousy titles instead of Sen. or Rep. or whatever. Associated Press style says to use just last names on second reference and to use Senator, President, etc. on first reference. Which ever way your media outlet does things is just a difference in which stylebook you're adhering to, not anything personal against any of the people being written about.
You mean like one of the suitcase nukes that extremist Saudi-based Wahhabi muslims bought from former parts of the Soviet Union, @30?
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