Clinton's Defense Chief Speaks

Maybe she's lobbying for a gig as head of Hillary's Pentagon. Whatever the reasons, feminist Gloria Steinem had a lot to say to The NY Observer, including:

• “From George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people.”
  
  
• “Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight [sic] years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’ ... I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”
  
  
• “I am so grateful that she [Clinton] hasn’t been trained to kill anybody. And she probably didn’t even play war games as a kid. It’s a great relief from Bush in his jump suit and from Kerry saluting.”

Thank you, Gloria, for reminding us of just how anti-military the Cintons are. From their first day in office, they attacked military institutions, budgets and weapons systems. To these two Vietnam anti-war protesters, the military became nothing more than a PR tool to fire up when scandal hit.

Remember Bill Clinton's notorious letter to his draft board, in which he laid out his opposition to the Vietnam war?

I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the national organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium is a close friend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to England to organize the Americans here for demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 16. ...

Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am more proud of than anything else I wrote at Oxford last year. ...

The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system.

A lot of folks from my generation, myself included, were against the Vietnam war. Many of us, myself included, now realize that was youthful folly and wish we could take back what we said and thought at the time. But to my knowledge, Clinton and his life partner are not among us in that regard.

So during this campaign, as Hillary Clinton campaigns as the more adept of the Dem candidates at military issues, the more capable of handling the challenges of radical Islam's war on us, I've had to ask, "Where are the challenging questions? Who in the MSM is going to stand up to this?"

Now Steinem has opened the door pretty wide open. The Clinton campaign, having benefitted from Steinem's gallant effort to rally radical feminists and anti-war activists to the campaign, will distance themselves from the remarks, glad that they've been said.

They'll go for the best of both worlds now: Rallying the radicals and pandering to everyone else by apologizing for the criticism of McCain, calling him a hero. They will not address the other statements regarding Clinton's anti-war past, of course.

Ta-da; here's the statement, tacked onto the bottom of the NYObserver piece:

"Senator Clinton has repeatedly praised Senator McCain's courage and service to our country. These comments certainly do not represent her thinking in any way. Senator Clinton intends to have a respectful debate with Senator McCain on the issues."

Exactly.

hat-tip: memeorandum