Dec 7, 2003 Part II: More on Hillary

More on Ms. Clinton's Sunday TV blitz (part one here):

FACE THE NATION CBS TV, DECEMBER 7, 2003

Interview with Sen. Clinton

MR. ROBERTS: And with us now is New York Senator Hillary Clinton. Good to see you this morning. Thanks for coming in.

SEN. CLINTON: Thank you. Good to be here John.

MR. ROBERTS: So Andy Card paints a pretty rosy scenario of what's going on in Iraq. Do you agree with him?

SEN. CLINTON: I think rosy scenario is alive and well in the White House these days based on what Mr. Card had to say. There are some things that are going right. My trip to Afghanistan and Iraq illustrated clearly to me that our troops are doing a great job under very difficult circumstances and that we are making some progress on the ground. But we have such a long way to go. And I think that one of the missing elements in our strategy thus far has been the president and the administration leveling with the American people about what it is we're up against, how long it's going to take, how much it's going to cost.

MR. ROBERTS: This is a rare moment where you seem at least be partially in agreement with Newt Gingrich.

(Laughter.)

SEN. CLINTON: Yes, I find myself amazed by that. I'm sure he's even more so. He has apparently written quite a critical piece of the administration's policy in Iraq. And in –

MR. ROBERTS: Accusing them of going over a cliff in the post-war period.

SEN. CLINTON: That's right. And pointed out some of the deficiencies in the - on the ground operation in Iraq. No reasonable person looking at the facts can't see that there are some real problems that we have to deal with. I don't think happy talk is a substitute for a policy. And maybe they'll listen to Newt Gingrich. They certainly haven't listened to anybody else.

MR. ROBERTS: You've talked about the need to internationalize the operation there. What do you mean when you say internationalize? How can it be more internationalized than it is already? You already have troops from a number of different countries there. You have a number of different countries participating in the rebuilding.

SEN. CLINTON: Well what I have in mind is something more in the order of both what we did in Bosnia and Kosovo in the Clinton Administration.

Well, that's certainly a lot of emphasis on Mr Gingrich's statements. And what did Mr. Gingrich say? Did he call for "internationalizing" Iraq? Did he endorse the Kosovo model? What a surprise to find him on Meet the Press:

MEET THE PRESS, NBC TV, DECEMBER 7, 2003

Interview with Newt Gingrich

TIM RUSSERT: And we are back. Speaker Gingrich, welcome back.

MR. GINGRICH: Good to be here.

MR. RUSSERT: You gave an interview to Newsweek magazine, which will be on the newsstands tomorrow, and you said, "The administration has gone off a cliff" in terms of Iraq. Explain that.

MR. GINGRICH: No, what I said was that after the brilliant military campaign of 23 days, that we went off a cliff after that in the sense that the small military worked and was right if you were going to rapidly convert Iraqis into policing their own country and if you were going to be the reinforcer of an Iraqi system, not the enforcer of an American system. And the mistake we made -- if you look at Afghanistan, it took us three weeks from the fall of Kandahar to recognize Karzai, and five weeks after that he was at the State of the Union sitting next to Mrs. Bush. And from that point on, it was clear that the Americans were helping the Afghans; they weren't trying to police Afghanistan, which is an impossible challenge. I think the cliff we have gone off that we need to get back on is to put the Iraqis at the center of this equation, not foreign governments, not the U.N., not more American troops. Put the Iraqis at the center of this equation and recognize that most Iraqis do not want to go back to a brutal, murdering, raping dictatorship. Most Iraqis want to have an organized way of governing themselves, but they want to be in charge of their own country.

MR. RUSSERT: But there are those who say if you try to do that today or in the next few months, you would have chaos, anarchy and a civil war, because the Iraqis are not capable of securing their own country at this point.

MR. GINGRICH: Look, I don't believe we should be arguing about American commitment in Iraq. The only exit strategy in Iraq is victory.

Sounds more in line with Mr. Cards comments then Ms Clintons. Not sure why his statements aren't labeled as "rosy".

The only amazing aspect of this situation is that somehow the Democrats and the media have somehow latched on to Newt Gingrich as the voice of reason in the Republican party. Stop and think about that one a while. In the "contract with America" days they couldn't discredit the man enough, and now he's their font of reason, wisdom, and knowledge.

So if Newt's on Hillary's team, then who's in charge of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy? Because Ms. Clinton thinks it's alive and well (and out to get her)...

Part III here