Making History

I've been reading a lot about Hillary Clinton and it isn't all good.

OK, she's the acknowledged Democratic front-runner in the polls ... but people won't actually vote in caucuses and primaries for a few more months. If she's going to cruise to the nomination, that leaves time to kill and newspaper space to fill.

If she goes on to win the nomination, she'll be the first woman nominated for president by a major party. Shouldn't we have some idea, by now, what she stands for?

That seems to be one of the biggest complaints I read about Hillary. No one seems to know what she stands for.

I was raised a Democrat. I have followed political campaigns since Richard Nixon was elected president. I've been following this campaign and its many debates about as closely as anyone has. And I still don't know what Hillary feels passionately about -- except being elected.

When you visit her web site, what do you expect to see?

I'll tell you what you do see. In her "Spotlight," you see her health care plan -- which she kept under wraps until well after John Edwards revealed his plan. And you see a video of her announcing her plan. You also see a promotion from a blog touting Hillary's support for Hispanic Heritage Month -- not exactly a gamble when you realize how large the Hispanic vote has become and could potentially become.

And you see a link where you can participate in proclaiming the "Top 10 Reasons" to support her candidacy -- an activity reminiscent of her poll in which visitors could help choose a campaign theme song. (Predictably, the theme song wound up being a piece of Celine Dion drivel.)

When you go to her site, you can roll your mouse over each number from 1 to 10 to see what Hillary and her campaign staff think are the top 10 reasons to elect her. Each one seems to be written in non-threatening -- and noncommittal -- language. Except one.

I have to wonder how the #1 reason for electing Hillary got past Hillary and her staff: "To end the war in Iraq."

To me, she seems far too intent on winning, moreso than winning for the right reasons -- for taking principled stands on important issues. She always seems to hesitate, waiting to see what her opponents will do or what the polls might say. In fact, "hesitance" seems to sum up her political career. I can't think of a single piece of legislation -- major or minor -- that she has been responsible for as a senator.

And, when she had a chance to vote on whether to authorize Bush to go to war in Iraq, she was a follower, not a leader -- following a large majority that voted to give Bush unrestricted authority to single-handedly reverse a long-standing American policy of not being the military aggressor. It took her a couple of years to tentatively reverse her position.

So how does that prepare her to end this war?

She can't commit to pulling troops out of Iraq by the end of her first term, which is more than five years from now.

I agree with Obama's assessment (which drew a rousing "Me, too!" from Hillary) that we can't know what the situation will be when the next president is sworn in, so obviously we can't know what will happen in the next president's four years on the job.

But that doesn't mean that a candidate can't say what he or she would like to accomplish. It's what the first President Bush called "the vision thing." (He didn't have one, by the way, and neither does his son.)

Or, as Robert Kennedy so eloquently put it, "Some men see things as they are and say 'Why?' I dream things that never were and say 'Why not?'"

Where is Hillary's vision?