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Did Clinton Flip-Flop?Dissecting Hillary's comments about Iran.
By John DickersonPosted Friday, Oct. 12, 2007, at 5:43 PM ET
I am having a debate with the Obama campaign about the first-person pronoun. On Thursday night, Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested she would negotiate with Iran without preconditions. ''I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading.''
Sen. Barack Obama has seized on that statement, arguing that she has flip-flopped from her previous assertion that she would not negotiate with dictators. At one level, as I will explain in a second, this is a silly fight about pronouns. At another, it's an incredibly important policy debate. The question of Iran negotiations is an argument about which of the two candidates has a better grasp of the threats that face the country and how to deal with them. Finding the right answer to that question may be the most important thing in the election. Also, which candidate can we trust to tell us the truth, or as close to the truth as a politician will offer? And which candidate will distort the facts to make a point?
It's also a revealing political squabble. One of Hillary's exploitable weaknesses is that voters don't trust her, so accusing her of flip-flopping plays on that vulnerability. That's why John Edwards' campaign, always one degree more aggressive than Obama's, put out a release with this first sentence: "Senator Clinton needs to be honest with the American people about her plans." Clinton's biggest asset, according to polls, is her experience and leadership qualities. She doesn't want to lose a single bit of advantage by looking unsure on foreign affairs. Obama wants to talk about Clinton's missteps on Iran because it is a forward-looking national security issue. He's been talking about how he was right about Iraq five years ago, but that's a backward-looking argument.
So, a lot is at stake in proving that Clinton has flip-flopped on the question of negotiating with Iran. How to interpret what she said? One reading suggests that Clinton is in fact going back on her word. When Barack Obama said he would negotiate with foreign leaders in late July, Clinton said it was naive—that person-to-person negotiations "at that high a level before you know what the intentions are ... [would be] used for propaganda purposes." Obama replied that her refusal to consider such negotiations was proof she was like George Bush. So when Clinton said she would "engage in negotiations," Obama immediately clobbered her for inconsistency: "I'm not sure if any of us knows exactly where she stands on this. But I can tell you this: when I am President of the United States, the American people and the world will always know where I stand."
When I told an Obama aide I didn't think she was changing her position on direct personal negotiations with Iranian leaders, the aide asked, "So when she says I, she actually means someone else?" The answer is yes. Clinton is using a common campaign construction in which the first-person singular stands for the entire administration. So, for example, when Obama pledges, as he did earlier in the month, "I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately," he is not saying that he will go to Iraq to do the job himself. He's saying he would task his secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs to get the job done. So, too, with Clinton: She would task people to negotiate, but it does not necessarily follow from her statement that she would do the negotiations herself, which has always been her distinction. There's no evidence she was talking about direct negotiations with foreign leaders. Hence, no flip-flop.
Did Clinton Flip-Flop?:Dissecting Hillary's comments about Iran.
John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author ofOn Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photograph of Sen. Hillary Clinton by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
COMMENTS
Remarks from the Fray:
Wow. Mr. Dickerson, this seems like quite a pass. I understand what you are saying, and appreciate your willingness to write so adeptly about the various aspects of campaigns and the dialogue between the campaigns. My feeling though is that saying "I" in reference to one's administration talking with Iran versus a direct mono-a-mono talk is like splitting hairs. There is a difference, but it's pretty minor. If you are correct, and that is what Clinton is referring to, why would such communications by proxy be invulnerable to propaganda [as by] Clinton's earlier logic? My feeling is that talking is talking regardless of whether or not a surrogate is sent.
I can certainly accept Mr. Dickerson's argument for HRC meaning her administration with "I", not herself personally, particularly given that she followed up her point later in the media discussing how sending low-level emissaries is the responsible first steps when engaging with a hostile foreign power. My question then, is did Obama explicitly say that, he, Barack Obama, would immediately engage with Iran's leaders with no conditions, or did he also mean his administration? When he was being hammered for this, I thought of the same defense for him that Dickerson gave to HRC, that he was talking about his administration, and he wouldn't necessarily be flying to Tehran on Jan. 21, 2009. Did Barack explicitly say otherwise, or are we giving Hillary more leeway on this issue than we are Obama?
It is impossible speak intelligently on a subject in a sound bite. It is what they criticized Kerry for, but he was right. Often sound bites incite an emotional reaction rather than critical thinking.
Of course the heads of major countries should talk. Nixon went to China and Kennedy spoke to Kruschev. Unlike the current administration, dialog is not the same thing as getting in bed with someone. Negotiation is not a dirty word.
Although I have my qualms about Hillary Clinton, there was little difference in what she said. She never said in the first place that she would never speak to hostile foreign leaders.
And isn't it better that she says she will speak to the President of Iran than to bomb Iran? Who by the way is not, by definition a dictator, he was elected and will be out of office at some point. He isn't the sole decision maker in Iran.
The inconsistency in Clinton's position should not be analyzed by poking at almost imperceptible distinctions in her semantics. Even giving her the credit of consistency, the issue revealed by Obama was that Clinton was quick to fiercely interpret his debate remark as naive (based on a narrow, cynical interpretation of his meaning) when in fact her own remarks could be interpreted in exactly the same way. (Note the tortured language you employed to defend her.) It is her general lack of straightforward dealing that is the issue, not a technical inconsistency. Indeed, both candidates would likely meet directly with dictators (personally, if it would do some good) since the idea of not doing so is largely a habit of the current administration and its failed neo-con architects.
More importantly, shame on you for labeling criticism of the vote to authorize the war five years ago (and to invent reasons for the vote) as irrelevant and backward looking. This is not merely Monday morning quarterbacking -- it is watching film from a losing football game in which Clinton played an important role, in order to decide whether she should start next weekend. If you don't look backward and learn from mistakes, you don't know where you are going, my friend. Clinton and anyone else who caused this horrible debacle in Iraq should be held accountable or explain in plain terms why not!
An interesting take, although it occurs to me that the logic should work both ways...if Clinton's substitution of the first person singular for the first person plural is a valid move, then Obama is welcome to retroactively parse his own comments along the same lines.
More troublingly, I think, is the implication that any future talk about "direct personal [fill in the blank]" or indeed anything suggesting that the candidate is an individual who is uniquely accountable for his or her actions will be rendered annoyingly vague, if not outright unintelligible. "Mistakes were made" becomes "Diplomacy was attempted." Free passes all around!
I am having a debate with the Obama campaign about the first-person pronoun. On Thursday night, Sen. Hillary Clinton suggested she would negotiate with Iran without preconditions. ''I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading.''
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Remarks from the Fray:
Wow. Mr. Dickerson, this seems like quite a pass. I understand what you are saying, and appreciate your willingness to write so adeptly about the various aspects of campaigns and the dialogue between the campaigns. My feeling though is that saying "I" in reference to one's administration talking with Iran versus a direct mono-a-mono talk is like splitting hairs. There is a difference, but it's pretty minor. If you are correct, and that is what Clinton is referring to, why would such communications by proxy be invulnerable to propaganda [as by] Clinton's earlier logic? My feeling is that talking is talking regardless of whether or not a surrogate is sent.
--LTN
(To reply, click here.)
I can certainly accept Mr. Dickerson's argument for HRC meaning her administration with "I", not herself personally, particularly given that she followed up her point later in the media discussing how sending low-level emissaries is the responsible first steps when engaging with a hostile foreign power. My question then, is did Obama explicitly say that, he, Barack Obama, would immediately engage with Iran's leaders with no conditions, or did he also mean his administration? When he was being hammered for this, I thought of the same defense for him that Dickerson gave to HRC, that he was talking about his administration, and he wouldn't necessarily be flying to Tehran on Jan. 21, 2009. Did Barack explicitly say otherwise, or are we giving Hillary more leeway on this issue than we are Obama?
--infinityplus
(To reply, click here.)
It is impossible speak intelligently on a subject in a sound bite. It is what they criticized Kerry for, but he was right. Often sound bites incite an emotional reaction rather than critical thinking.
Of course the heads of major countries should talk. Nixon went to China and Kennedy spoke to Kruschev. Unlike the current administration, dialog is not the same thing as getting in bed with someone. Negotiation is not a dirty word.
Although I have my qualms about Hillary Clinton, there was little difference in what she said. She never said in the first place that she would never speak to hostile foreign leaders.
And isn't it better that she says she will speak to the President of Iran than to bomb Iran? Who by the way is not, by definition a dictator, he was elected and will be out of office at some point. He isn't the sole decision maker in Iran.
--rlritt
(To reply, click here.)
The inconsistency in Clinton's position should not be analyzed by poking at almost imperceptible distinctions in her semantics. Even giving her the credit of consistency, the issue revealed by Obama was that Clinton was quick to fiercely interpret his debate remark as naive (based on a narrow, cynical interpretation of his meaning) when in fact her own remarks could be interpreted in exactly the same way. (Note the tortured language you employed to defend her.) It is her general lack of straightforward dealing that is the issue, not a technical inconsistency. Indeed, both candidates would likely meet directly with dictators (personally, if it would do some good) since the idea of not doing so is largely a habit of the current administration and its failed neo-con architects.
More importantly, shame on you for labeling criticism of the vote to authorize the war five years ago (and to invent reasons for the vote) as irrelevant and backward looking. This is not merely Monday morning quarterbacking -- it is watching film from a losing football game in which Clinton played an important role, in order to decide whether she should start next weekend. If you don't look backward and learn from mistakes, you don't know where you are going, my friend. Clinton and anyone else who caused this horrible debacle in Iraq should be held accountable or explain in plain terms why not!
--john adkisson
(To reply, click here.)
An interesting take, although it occurs to me that the logic should work both ways...if Clinton's substitution of the first person singular for the first person plural is a valid move, then Obama is welcome to retroactively parse his own comments along the same lines.
More troublingly, I think, is the implication that any future talk about "direct personal [fill in the blank]" or indeed anything suggesting that the candidate is an individual who is uniquely accountable for his or her actions will be rendered annoyingly vague, if not outright unintelligible. "Mistakes were made" becomes "Diplomacy was attempted." Free passes all around!
--Garrick
(To reply, click here.)
(10/13)