That isn’t a startling headline since it’s parroted by practically every presidential candidate. This quote will haunt her during next fall’s campaign, though:

“It cannot be American policy, period,” Clinton (D-N.Y.) told debate moderator Tim Russert, who asked if there should be a presidential exemption to allow the torture of a terror chieftain if authorities knew a bomb was about to go off, but didn’t know where it was.

That definitive statement will cause Hillary lots of problems next fall because she all but admitted that she won’t do everything in her power to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks. While the anti-torture position is popular inside the Beltway, it isn’t popular in the Heartland. People that I talk with want the feds to do everything in their power to protect us.

When Russert revealed ex-President Bill Clinton advocated such a policy on a recent NBC “Meet the Press” appearance, Hillary Clinton won huge applause from the Dartmouth College audience with a deadpan comeback:

“Well, I’ll talk to him later.”

She may have to give herself that talk, too.

Last October, Clinton told the Daily News: “If we’re going to bepreparing for the kind of improbable but possible eventuality, then it has to be done within the rule of law.”

She said then the “ticking time bomb” scenario represents a narrow exception to her opposition to torture as morally wrong, ineffective and dangerous to American soldiers.

“In the event we were ever confronted with having to interrogate a detainee with knowledge of an imminent threat to millions of Americans, then the decision to depart from standard international practices must be made by the President, and the President must be held accountable,” she said.

If this were any other issue, people might say that this is just another example of a politician talking out both sides of her mouth. But this isn’t just any issue. That answer isn’t the way to convince people that you’re serious about a president’s first affirmative duty: to protect the people from all enemies. In fact, it isn’t a stretch to think that she doesn’t know what she’d do if that situation presented itself. That’s hardly the type of position Hillary wants to put herself in.

Hillary’s mistake wasn’t the only dumb answer given last night:

The ex-New York mayor came under fire for voicing his readiness to attack Iran to keep it from developing nuclear weapons. Clinton was accused by some of her rivals of playing into President Bush’s hands by voting for an anti-Iran Senate resolution.

“I think what Mayor Giuliani said was irresponsible, because we have not yet come to that point,” said Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), arguing there is a lot of diplomacy to be done first.

“Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about,” zinged Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.). “He’s the most uninformed person on American foreign policy now running forPresident.”

Having Joe Biden say that Rudy doesn’t know what he’s talking about highlights Sen. Biden’s stupidity. Most people don’t take him seriously as a presidential candidate. In fact, some think he’s really running for Vice President. If Hillary or Obama get the nomination, the biggest mistake they could make is naming an ill-infomred loose cannon like Sen. Biden to be their running mate.

Technorati Tags: Hillary, Terrorism, Torture, Joe Biden, Obama, Presidential Debate, Rudy Giuliani, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. Key Union Delays Presidential Endorsement…

   In a blow to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, the Service Employees International Uni…

   Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — September 27, 2007 @ 11:43 am

1. Firstly, I’d like to know how Bush is holding up all the principles he talked about when running in 1999-2000, like say, no nation building, chiding the Iraqi National Congress, blaming the Clinton administration for wearing out the troops on back-to-back missions… the list goes on and on showing the total hypocrisy of the Bush cabal. So, to say that anything Hillary says today will haunt her.. well, that is pre-9/11 thinking.

   Second, being an intelligent person, Hillary was nuanced in her answers, and of course there is a difference between policy and imminent threat. There is no flip-flop there, as decent people rightly expect that we uphold the Geneva Conventions, but should the homeland come under imminent threat, the president would of course be free to perform her “affirmative” duties. Hillary’s statement, however, highlights the major difference between what she would do and what Bush does, and it comes down to one word: accountability. Whereas Bush hides everything from public scrutiny, Hillary has pledged to uphold the Constitution.

   Would that Bush have honored “a president’s first affirmative duty: to protect the people from all enemies” when he received the PDB on August 6, 2001. But he didn’t, and we now have dereliction of duty at its most basic level. The significant contrast between that, and the answer to the imminent threat hypothetical presented to Hillary in the debate last night, is stark. Hillary says she would do something; whereas Bush continued his vacation.

   And Rudy? He’s so brilliant, that after the WTC was attacked in 1993, he moved New York City’s emergency response unit to the very place that al-Qaida announced they were intent on destroying.

   So, the choice is clear: a president who will uphold the Constitution and protect the American people, or a president who ignores the threat and makes the situation worse. Wow, I guess there is a reason that the country says they trust Democrats to handle everything more than the republicans.

   In the end, actions do have consequences.

   Comment by Rocky — September 27, 2007 @ 1:14 pm

2. Actually, from what I heard, which isnt very much, Id say Hillary nuanced it very well. She didnt make excuses for Bill, and gave an honest answer.

   In an actual situation I’d be willing to bet she’d have second thoughts and would find it quite easy to put the lives of Americans over a Treaty an a few legal niceties and a handful of terrorists. Its quite easy to be idealistic and highminded in front of cameras. Its something else when your looking down a gun barrel, or your country is threatened.

   I dont care for her politics, but she has more guts than any of her competition as well as a lot of Republicans Ive seen lately.

   Comment by T. A. Gray — September 27, 2007 @ 2:42 pm

3. Everything Hillary Clinton says contradicts something she said earlier. Next week she’ll probably support roughing up terrorists.

   The Democrat base is going to support her no matter what. The real test is whether or not the minority of swing voters are going to be smart enough to see Hillary as the lying fraud that she is.

   One more thing: why do liberals love being hoodwinked? “Hillary nuanced it very well.” Basically, that’s saying: “I liked the way she blew smoke up my ass.”

   I remember Al Franken complaining the day after the 2004 election that American voters weren’t smart enough to grasp John Kerry’s nuancing of the “global test”. Yeah, we’re all too studid to know a lying fraud when we hear one…

   Comment by DFAL — September 27, 2007 @ 3:35 pm

4. Dont put words my mouth DFAL!
   I didnt say she blew smoke up my ass, I said she made no excuses for Bill and gave an honest answer.

   Bad enough to have to put up with loons to the left on here without loons to the right!

   Comment by T. A. Gray — September 27, 2007 @ 3:43 pm

5. Hilary Clinton is a lot better than I am at answering yes and no to the same question at the same time with the same answer:
   

   “In the event we were ever confronted with having to interrogate a detainee with knowledge of an imminent threat to millions of Americans,

   that much is clear, but then she says:
   

   then the decision to depart from standard international practices must be made by the President,

   Really, not the U.N. like Kerry and so many other Dems suggest? Does this say, then, that you would do whatever it would take to protect American lives or…?
   

   and the President must be held accountable,” she said.

   And what does that mean? It should be the President’s choice to “depart from international standards” to interrogate suspects where imminent danger threatens millions of people in this country, but then the President also needs to be “held accountable.” which means…they have to admit it? They have to be tried in a court? International court? What the hell kind of message does that send? Who in the world would be scared of a country so hog-tied as to utter such self-contradictory nonsense?

   I’m not voting for anybody that can’t just say, “Listen, I can’t get into our tactics. Because that’s telling the enemy how to avoid being defeated by us. All I can tell you is that we’re going to make sure the Good Guys win, and that American lives are spared at every opportunity. And we wont compromise our approach in doing so.”

   There, now, was that so hard?

   Comment by Dairenn Lombard — September 27, 2007 @ 3:47 pm

6. On most occasions we will not know for sure whether someone is a terrorist until after we have tortured him. That is why enhanced interrogation techniques must be used upon everyone who is suspected of terrorism.

   Comment by KnightErrant — September 27, 2007 @ 5:16 pm

7. Sounds like she’s trying to leave herself wiggle room with the far left. Up to that point she was OK, then she seemed to cave to the legalists on the far left.

   You know the President takes an oath to preserve, protect a defend the Constitution, and who is the Constitution for? We the people.
   Any President that allows International law to trump the sovereignty of the country, or allows the Constitution or the laws to be used against him like that is a fool.
   He’s a fool!

   If he needs to wire tap an enemy, citizen or not, so be it. If torture is all that he has left to find out something from a scumbag terrorist when the lives of thousands of innocent people are in extremis, I say its justified.

   Because in the end, the constitution is a law, written by men. Its a good law, but it has flaws its authors never imagined.

   Comment by T. A. Gray — September 27, 2007 @ 8:43 pm

8. Can we all agree not to use the word nuanced anymore? Nuance, in laymans terms, means bullshit. Lets just call it what it is.

   Comment by PDizzle — September 28, 2007 @ 1:40 am

9. Limbaugh: Service members who support U.S. withdrawal are “phony soldiers”

   Comment by Benn — September 28, 2007 @ 6:59 am

10. Obviously Benn had his kool-aid today and didn’t listen to Limbaugh either yesterday or today. Just what I’d expect from someone dribbling out just south of Uranis.

    FYI, Benn (and transcripts bear this out), he was talking very specifically about a “hero” trumped up by the maddogs who, it turns out, spent 40-some odd days in the military, was never more than a buck private, was never in Iraq to see the things he said he saw, and is now apparently under investigation for lying on his application for military medical (mental health) benefits.

    Oh, please, please, puh-leeze give us more heroes like that, Benn!

    This one’s as good as the attack on Limbaugh and Williams (the “Happy Negro”, as named by one of your racist lib friends) as racists.

    Comment by Carlos — September 28, 2007 @ 9:57 pm