The Pentagon Insults Hillary ClintonBig mistake.
Posted Friday, July 20, 2007, at 6:05 PM ET
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUponFirst, Clinton's original letter to Gates was not at all extraordinary. Members of key congressional committees—on armed services, intelligence, or the defense subcommittees of the budget and appropriations panels—make such requests all the time, and they are generally honored. (Clinton is a member of the Senate armed services committee.) In the range of sensitive material that officials routinely present to these committees, contingency planning for an Iraqi troop withdrawal is fairly low-grade.
Second, these contingency plans do exist. In February 2006, U.S. Army generals in Iraq started asking military archivists to dig up official records from the 1970s involving troop withdrawals from Vietnam. The generals were interested in procedures for disposing and transferring military property, the precise sequence of demobilization—the basic logistics of pulling out. The intention was explicit: They knew they would, at some point, be staging a withdrawal from Iraq. Once it began, it could spin out of control, so they needed an advance plan for an orderly exit. (I wrote about this request in an article for the Atlantic a year ago.)
Clinton was expressing the same concern as the generals. "Congress must be sure," she wrote in her May letter to Gates, "that we are prepared to withdraw our forces without any unnecessary danger." She mentioned nothing about withdrawing now or even soon: She asked only whether the military now has a blueprint for when the time to leave comes. There's nothing heretical or traitorous about this line of inquiry, either. Even President Bush acknowledges that U.S. troops will leave Iraq at some point.
As a discrete episode, this spat may soon fade away. Gates, who may well have no more than a dim awareness of Edelman's letter (or of Clinton's initial request), will probably eat the proverbial humble pie by sending over someone with a classified briefing—or maybe even delivering it himself.
But as a political symbol, the incident may have greater endurance. Senators put up with a lot of evasion and deceit from the executive branch, but one thing they will not tolerate is being explicitly left out of the loop. In his letter to Clinton, Edelman not only said she had no business in the loop, he all but accused of her treason for asking to be let in. If senators feel the slightest tug of solidarity (and they tend to, on matters of senatorial privilege), they may rally around their trampled colleague. The sense of insult may spill over into their feelings about the war in general and perhaps strengthen, if just slightly, the ranks of the opposed.
As for the broader electorate, women have famously mixed feelings about Hillary Clinton, but many of them tend to drop their caveats when they sense that her womanhood is under attack. In her 2000 Senate campaign, a turning point came toward the end of the candidates' debate in Buffalo, when her Republican opponent, Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio, charged her podium and pestered her to sign a pledge to take no soft money.
Maureen Dowd wrote (purchase required) for the next day's New York Times about a woman in the audience who switched to Hillary at that moment because Lazio "suddenly conjured up the image of her husband, waving a credit card receipt in her face, yelling at her that she had overcharged, his eyes bulging, his veins popping, screaming at her to return everything to the store."
Dowd may have slightly overdramatized, but the woman in Buffalo was not alone. Polls the following week showed a huge spike in support for Clinton among suburban women, who until the debate had been divided or slightly leaning toward Lazio.
Eric Edelman wasn't yelling at Clinton, but he was patronizing her ("I appreciate your interest in our mission in Iraq. …"), shooing her away from serious men's business—and that may, in its own way, decisively rankle.
Who is this Edelman? He's had a long career in the diplomatic corps, going back to the Reagan years and continuing through the presidencies of the first Bush and Clinton. He's been ambassador to Turkey and Finland, deputy chief of mission to the Czech Republic, special assistant to secretaries of state. None of these posts has required him to deal much with pesky senators. Professionally cultivated indifference may have ratcheted upward to hostility during the first two and a half years of George W. Bush's first term, when he served as Vice President Dick Cheney's deputy assistant for national security. Like so much else poisonous about this administration, then, the clash can be traced back to Cheney.
Is It More Important for Your Turkey To Be Organic or Local?
Why Gift Cards Are a Terrible Gift
Is Sarah Palin's Approval Rating Really as High as Barack Obama's?
Justice Scalia's Most Eccentric Habits
Adam Lambert's Refreshing Non-Apology on the CBS Early Show
Democrats Have a Lot To Be Thankful For
Remarks from the Fray:
The only thing the article neglects to mention is the reason Ms. Clinton's request rankled the Defense Department. Yes, maybe it was because she's a woman or because Edelman has been infected with Dick Cheney's arrogance, probably all true. But when you talk to these guys about a plan for withdrawal, it's not a matter that, "Okay, some day we're going to have to get out of there, so what are you thinking?"
It comes down to a very different view of the context of that withdrawal. If Bush/Cheney's wet dreams come true, our withdrawal will be something like guests leaving a successful dinner party, all cheery farewells and thank-yous. If the outcome the rest of us fear comes to pass, it will be chaotic, bloody, disorganized and tragic. So, when Clinton asks for a plan, she's really asking, "Have you made provisions for a full-on retreat under fire?"
How can they answer this question? If they answer that no particular provisions are necessary because Iraq will be pacified and living under an orderly democracy, they invite the ridicule of the world. If they reveal that they have plans for a panicky airlift, they admit the possibility that things might not go as they hope. If they say they have no plan at all, we're back to the ridicule thing. So, you see, it's a lot more than the gender of the questioner, it's the question itself that is a dreadful tar baby for Gates and his DoD.
--JimBob
(To reply, click here.)
While I agree that Senator Clinton's inquiry should have been handled in a manner more satisfactory to her, I think you're making much of the perceived patronizing attitude toward her as a woman. I was the Adjutant for my battalion while deployed to Afghanistan and when congressional inquiries came down-- often concerning topics that should have been handled at a higher level, but things just kept rolling downhill-- it was my job as a lowly captain to write the response with my commander's signature block. The letters always concluded with a statement to the effect of "Thank you for your concern in this important matter. We stand committed to continue to provide the utmost service; please feel free to contact us directly with any future questions."
--Anywhere
(To reply, click here.)
I agree that this is a serious breach of government on the part of Gates, but where exactly, except in the mind of the author, does this come across as sexist? It is clear that he is demeaning senators in general but there is nowhere even the slightest tinge of sexism. This is why people loathe Hilary Clinton democrats. They are constantly straining to portray Clinton as a woman attempting to overcome sexism on the behalf of all women everywhere when she is in fact the beneficiary of a corporate, big-money machine that her husband built.
--morganja
(To reply, click here.)
It's certainly possible that this is exactly the arrogant dismissal that it seems to be. But I think that it's also possible that this is a stalling tactic. I can imagine a conversation taking place that went something like this:
Edelman: Secretary Gates, I've been reviewing our contingency plans, but they're still a mess. The stuff Rumsfeld's people left us was a joke, and two months hasn't been enough time to fix them. We can't let the Senate see this.
Gates: Hmm, that's not good. Do you think another two months would be enough time to get them into shape.
Edelman: I believe so, yes. Can we stall them for that long?
Gates: Sure, but here's what you need to do. Write the nastiest, most insulting letter you possibly can, telling Senator Clinton that she's not entitled to anything and she's a traitor for asking. That's not true, of course, and she'll go bonkers when we say that. But after that we should be able to burn at least a month in some phony-baloney negotiations about what they're entitled to; At the end of that month, if we agree to give them everything they're asking then I'm sure they'll let us take another month to assemble and vet the material. I'm afraid you'll have to look like something of a putz in the media and the Senate, but don't worry about that--people in Washington have short memories. I mean, look at me--I almost got indicted during Iran-Contra, and that turned out to be a great career move.
Edelman: Thank you, sir, we'll have the letter out tomorrow.
--lonesome moderate
(To reply, click here.)
A true statesman concerned about the nation would be talking with Gates quietly to resolve this, not posting letters with the press to get publicity. Hillary must be publicly aggressive now to try to overcome the monumental lack of judgment she demonstrated in authorizing Bush to go to war. Sure he lied, but others saw the same evidence, did not believe the lies, and voted against the war. Trying to escape responsibility in the pack and not owning up to her mistake is not the sign of a world-class leader. We can't risk the presidency again. I don't trust Hillary enough to vote for her.
--party-of-one
(To reply, click here.)
(7/22)