Hilary and last nights debate
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): Hilary and last nights debate
Anyone watch/hear about the debate? While I admit I was kind of like you go girl when I first heard about this, after I read about the direct contradiction, it made me realize that there is a very good reason I don't care for her.
HANOVER, N.H. - Sen. Hillary Clinton scored with a Democratic audience last night by contradicting her husband's belief that a terrorist could be tortured to foil an imminent plot - but what observers didn't know is she was contradicting herself, too.
"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.
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 be preparing 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.
Clinton's campaign did not immediately respond to numerous requests for comment on the eye-popping contradiction.
I also don't quite understand how they all seem to be pushing/demanding President Bush put a time frame on troop withdrawl, but none of them will say they will have troops out by the end of their term if they are elected.......
I will say that I normally vote Republican. However, I will also say that I am not a die hard. I have voted for a Democrat in the past and was honestly giving Obama some consideration. However, none of them said they would allow for the torture..... that doesn't sit well with me. They would rather protect the rights of one terrorist that find out where a bomb is that could kill thousands of Americans? I don't get that at all....
*sigh* I wish all politicians would just tell the truth and tell what they believe... it would make voting sooo much easier.
I wish they told the truth too. With every election in which I vote, I get more and more headaches trying to decipher what everyone has said and wondering if it was true, and didn't they say the opposite before that.
The worst is when a politician gets elected and does what they promised they wouldn't. I have to admit I yell at them through the television set.
As for this election, I'm stumped. The only thing I can guarantee is a huge migraine right before the presidential elections.
I fail to see the contradicton. Clinton (Hillary) is against torture as policy except in the very rare circumstance she listed, and she says that in such a rare and exceptional case the President should make any authorization made *and* be held accountable. The present administration, on the other hand, says that physical "pressure", so long as it does not lead to death or loss of organ function, is acceptable in any and all interrogation. Personally, I see a big difference.
Many, many experts on intelligence gathering, in this country and others, have said time and again that physical "pressure" (torture) is one of the most ineffective means of obtaining true, correct information from someone being questioned.
Historically, people being tortured have said whatever their interrogator wanted them to say, true or not, just to have the torture stop. There are hundreds of documented cases of people being interrogated by police about crimes, no torture but an intense interrogation that goes on for 18 - 40 hours, the person "confesses", and later discovered evidence shows the person to be totally innocent. And that is without physical torture.
Consider this - you are talking about people who are willing to strap explosives on themselves and blow themselves up in order to kill others, to fly an airplane on which they are riding into a building and kill themselves in order to kill others. I personally don't believe that torture would cause such a person to tell the truth about anything that might help the interrogators/torturers. So in the rare and exceptional situation Clinton referred 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 - what happens if the person lies? Police and military get sent searching here, there and everywhere, find no "bomb about to go off", more torture is inflicted, more lies are told - and on and on until the bomb (if there is one) goes off.
Oh, and if you want to talk about contradictions, how about Guliani and abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, and gun control? Talk about flip-flop!
Well, I think all politicians, whether they are Republican or Democrat, say what they think the public wants to hear, especially when they are running for office. They want votes, so they will do what it takes to get them. Therefore, I don't put a lot of stock in debates, or campaigns. I try and look at what the canidate has done in the past. How have they handled things, how have they have voted.
My big problem with last nights debate is that most of the candidates didn't step out and take a position. It seems they all kind danced around things. Tim Russett said this morning, it seemed that they were all very careful to not say anything that could be used against them.
As far as pulling out troops. I feel, and this is JMHO, that the candidates are pushing President Bush to pull out troops because if things go bad, it will be on him. If it is something they are going to be held accountable for, they are going to think long and hard before they do anything. John Edwards is the only candidate that said he would pull out troops right away.
How can you not see the contradiction? Last October she said:
"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.
In the debate she said:
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.
It can't be policy period, no exceptions. Clearly the opposite of what she said last October.
And I am not saying others don't flip flop either. But, to me right now, security is pretty high up there and I want to know where people stand on keeping us safe. That just opened my eyes to her at the same time is all.
As far as pulling out troops. I feel, and this is JMHO, that the candidates are pushing President Bush to pull out troops because if things go bad, it will be on him. If it is something they are going to be held accountable for, they are going to think long and hard before they do anything.
I think you are exactly right and agree 100%. And to be honest, it would shock me if John Edwards didn't get half the troops out in the first year the way he said either. Wouldn't that leave them so short handed they would be sitting ducks? They will all get around anything by saying they didn't know what they were inheriting....... Isn't it kind of their jobs to know what is going on? And it there is information they are not privy to, than maybe they shouldn't be so quick to judge the people that do have all the info!
Just a request, when quoting news reports could people put in a link or reference to the source? Many times the source is as important to figuring out what to make of a story as the story itself. 
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