Will the Real Hillary Clinton Please Stand Up, So We Can Vote Her Down

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has put a foreign policy gulf between herself and President Obama, whose popularity is rapidly deteriorating. Clinton gave an extensive interview to The Atlantic's national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg that was released last weekend. The interview was conducted before the President ordered targeted airstrikes and humanitarian deliveries in Iraq. In the interview, she was thorough in distancing herself from Obama's string of decisions concerning Syria and Iraq. She called his refusal to "build up a credible fighting force" in Syria to battle the al-Assad regime a "failure" that led to jihadists such as ISIS moving in : “The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad - there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle - the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled," White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes publicly responded to Mrs. Clinton's criticism of Barack Obama's foreign policy back in June, just as Hillary's book tour was starting up : "On the broad thrust of our foreign policy, she was fully on board," Rhodes told Politico. Goldberg also said that Obama has maintained for some time that the United States could have helped the rebel forces in Syria, telling him in an interview in February that doing so would not have stopped al Qaida-related groups like ISIS from taking control. But Clinton wrote in her memoir "Hard Choices" that she has long advocated helping the Syrian rebellion, a stance that her supporters say is supported by the downturn of recent events. Clinton, in the interview, did refer to Obama as "thoughtful" and someone with "intelligence," but she said his recently quoted foreign-policy doctrine of "don't do stupid stuff" does not work."Great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don’t do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle," she said. Clinton also tried to ease off on Obama, saying he may have bseen "trying to communicate to the American people that he's not going to do something crazy," but also voiced concerns that America's position in the world seems to be moving backwards. In addition, Clinton argued that there is a difference between posturing, which she said was how former President George W. Bush handled foreign policy and a government that focuses on withdrawal."You know, when you’re down on yourself, and when you are hunkering down and pulling back, you’re not going to make any better decisions than when you were aggressively, belligerently putting yourself forward," she told Goldberg. The US, she said, needs to develop an "over-arching" strategy to resist Islamist terrorism, comparing it to how the United States battled communism. "One of the reasons why I worry about what’s happening in the Middle East right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, can affect the United States," Clinton said. "Jihadist groups are governing territory. They will never stay there, though. They are driven to expand. Their raison d’etre is to be against the West - against the Crusaders, against the fill-in-the-blank - and we all fit into one of these categories. How do we try to contain that? I’m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence, and defeat." She admitted that the United States "supported really nasty guys" while fighting communism, but "we did have a kind of over-arching framework about what we were trying to do that did lead to the defeat of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism. That was our objective. We achieved it.” Clinton also stood her ground in defending Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the current Gaza conflict, even though her battles about West Bank policy with Netanyahu were notorious while she was in office. "I think Israel did what it had to do to respond to the rockets,Israel has a right to defend itself. The steps Hamas has taken to embed rockets and command-and-control facilities and tunnel entrances in civilian areas, this makes a response by Israel difficult." She said Israel, like the US, is careful to avoid civilians, but "mistakes are made." Ultimately, though, the blame for the conflict "rests with Hamas." Harking back to her Benghazi language, she said : "it is "impossible to know what happens in the fog of war," but "there's no doubt in my mind that Hamas initiated this conflict....So the ultimate responsibility has to rest on Hamas and the decisions it made.” Clinton also accused Hamas of "stage-managing" the conflict with Israel : "What you see is largely what Hamas invites and permits Western journalists to report on from Gaza. It’s the old PR problem that Israel has. Yes there are substantive, deep levels of antagonism or anti-Semitism towards Israel, because it’s a powerful state, a really effective military. And Hamas paints itself as the defender of the rights of the Palestinians to have their own state. So the PR battle is one that is historically tilted against Israel." She also defended Netanyahu's statements that the rise of Moslem fundamentalists in the Middle East means he can't withdraw troops from the West Bank. "If I were the prime minister of Israel, you’re damn right I would expect to have control over security," said Clinton. "Even if I’m dealing with [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas, who is 79 years old, and other members of Fatah, who are enjoying a better lifestyle and making money on all kinds of things, that does not protect Israel from the influx of Hamas or cross-border attacks from anywhere else. With Syria and Iraq, it is all one big threat." ~~~~~ That is a remarkable chunk of conservative foreign policy commentary, coming as it does from Barack Obama's Secretary of State, who was responsible for implementing his foreign policy. It is difficult to decide if Mrs. Clinton has been brainwashed, or if her desire to be elected President has caused her to make yet another about-face in her opinions, moving sharply to the right because that is where Americans are on foreogn policy. ~~~~~ Here are some earlier comments made by Hillary Clinton that reflect a Secretary of State in agreement with the leftist President she served. **As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said in January, 2011 : "But our assessment is that the Egyptian Government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people." ~~~ Mubarak was overthrown by the Egyptian people's Arab Spring two weeks later. She later called the Moslem Brotherhood's Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi "a great statesman and lover of peace" and the US sent him several billion dollars. **Mrs. Clinton, when asked in March 2011 on "Face the Nation" why the Obama administration was opting for a far softer approach towards Syria's al-Assad compared to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, explained that Syria was led by a "reformer” : "Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer." ~~~ Al-Assad has since bombed and used chemicals on half the population of Syria because they want to be free of the Clinton-labeled reformer who is responsible for more than 100,000 Syrian deaths in a civil war he still refuses to halt. **Hillary Clinton had this to say in June 2012 just after the Obamacare Supreme Court decision : “I haven’t had a chance to read the decision. I literally just heard as we landed that the Supreme Court has upheld the healthcare law. Obviously I want to get into the details, but I’m very pleased. That’s how I hoped it would turn out. I think it’s a great moment to just think about what this will mean for the millions and millions of Americans who have already benefited from the Affordable Care Act and some many more who will continue to do so." **Hillary Clinton spoke at the ceremony when the remains of Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three other Americans killed in the Benghazi attack arrived in America : "This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with." Four months later, she blurted out to a congressional committee her callous comment about why the four were killed : "What difference does it make." ~~~~~ Dear readers, here are two more Hillary quotes to consider. **"I wonder if it’s possible to be a Republican and a Christian at the same time." **"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." ~~~~~ If you want a real "Reagan conservative" as President, vote Republican. In the meantime, will the real Hillary Clinton please stand up, so America can vote her down.