A.B. Stoddard: Waiting for Clinton

So we know how Hillary Clinton feels about steak, retiring Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), equal pay, a minimum wage increase and how hard Democrats should campaign for the midterm elections in November. But we don’t know what the former secretary of State — who wants to be president — thinks about a brand-new war launched by the United States in the Middle East. What’s staggering is that it comes as no surprise.

Last week, Clinton called on the United Nations to more effectively combat the abduction of women and girls by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups but was not moved to comment on the president’s strategy, outlined in an address to the nation two nights prior, to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Former President Bill Clinton has said he “strongly agrees” with President Obama’s plan for fighting ISIS, but he isn’t running for president. 

{mosads}No, Hillary Clinton’s leadership thus far on the issue has consisted of an anonymous attack — via a nameless former aide — at the “passive” president the day of his speech. As a reminder, in Clinton world, no former aide freelances; just like in the mob, all alumnae remain in the family for life. Boasting that Clinton herself would have taken a more “aggressive approach” the aggressive former aide told The Hill “it’s the very notion of decisiveness,” and “she’s not gnashing her teeth the way we’re seeing time and time again with Obama.” 

When Obama was still gnashing his teeth about ISIS in August, Clinton threw him under the bus, criticizing his failure to arm the Syrian opposition sooner in the civil war, in an article by Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic. Jihadists were able to fill a vacuum, she said, that resulted from the failure to “help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against [President Bashar] Assad.” But the kill shot was a jab at Obama’s private characterization of his own foreign policy: “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle,” she said.

As Clinton’s attack made headlines, and as she continued her book tour, the city of Ferguson, Mo., began writhing in chaos, looting and police crackdowns following the shooting by a white officer of a young, unarmed black man. It consumed the nation, the Twitterverse and the news cycle, but Clinton was silent. Meanwhile her book tour took her — surprise! — to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., where  the president was vacationing, and when she was headed to the same posh dinner party he was attending. Clinton released a cheeky statement from staff dismissing the sting of her Syria diss and promising to “hug it out” with her good friend President Obama. It wasn’t until 19 days later, after hundreds of arrests and three autopsies of Michael Brown, that Clinton commented on the shooting and backlash during a paid speech in San Francisco, where she said things she could have said earlier in the month. 

Last Sunday, in Iowa, the scene of the most bitter political defeat of her career, Clinton played it safe, as she was inconveniently confronted by a Dreamer, brought to the country illegally as a child, who asked whether she thought Obama had broken his promise to the Latino community by delaying executive action on immigration reform. Clinton’s response: “You know, I think we have to elect more Democrats.” The questioner wasn’t happy. “It was sad to hear the answer she gave, it shouldn’t be about the politics,” the Dreamer said. The activists who confronted her Tuesday in New York but were escorted out, were clearly expecting the same answer again.

It’s sad Clinton is avoiding decisiveness. You can almost hear her teeth gnashing. 

Stoddard is an associate editor of The Hill.