HILLARY: I voted for the Iraq war before I opposed it

OPINION:

While Jeb Bush is forced by the media to deal with a hypothetical about the Iraq War, Hillary Clinton is getting a pass for a an actual Senate vote she cast in support of the 2004 invasion. 

Of course, Hillary doesn’t take crazy chances like Jeb does by, say, taking questions from the media. But Jeb was governor of Florida when Congress voted on war authorization. Hillary was in the Senate, and a staunch supporter of the war intended to destroy Iraq’s capability to use a stockpile of WMD’s the entire world knew he had.

In 2001, Clinton strongly supported military intervention in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban, birthplace of al Qaeda, which dropped the World Trade Centers. In October 2002, she voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution, which gave President George W. Bush power to use military force against Iraq.

Of course, years later, she took it all back. In “Hard Choices,” Hillary apologized. “I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong,” she wrote — but in 2014.

Actually, years before she gave the answer Jeb finally gave, as well as everyone else with a brain: “Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote.” she said in 2006, adding, “I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.”

But that’s the job — of a president, of a senator. Elected officials must assess the facts as they exist at the time duty calls — and act. Sure, they can reassess and alter their views, but the vote still stands, as does the decision.

What’s most interesting: Bush made dozens of hard choices as president, hence the name of his book, “Decision Points.” Clinton only really big decision as a back-bench senator was on Iraq — she said then it was “probably the hardest decision I have ever had to make” — and by her own admission, she blew it.

In her 2002 Senate floor speech, she called Saddam Hussein a “tyrant” who had used WMD’s to kill some 20,000 people and thwarted weapons inspections since 1998. 

“It is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation,” she said. “It is a vote that says clearly to Saddam Hussein — this is your last chance — disarm or be disarmed.”

Also voting for that war resolution — Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry.