Hillary Clinton Avoids Taking A Stand On Keystone XL Pipeline & Once Again Undermines Fight For Reproductive Rights

Sanders on Clinton Keystone XL

“If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question.” –Hillary Clinton

One reason why Hillary Clinton is dropping in the polls and Bernie Sanders is climbing is that voters prefer a more open and honest candidate such as Sanders. Hillary Clinton has practiced triangulation to avoid taking a stand on controversial issues throughout her career, and we saw it again this week on the Keystone XL  Pipeline and Planned Parenthood.

While at times Clinton appeared to support the pipeline in the past, since this has become a risky position in Democratic primaries she has avoided answering questions on the subject. We got a classic Hillaryism with her latest response to the question: “If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question.”

Chris Cillizza tore Clinton apart for this line:

When you are running for president — whether or not you served in the current administration — you are going to be asked to take positions on issues that the current president is dealing with. As long as we hold elections that begin two years (or more) before the current president is set to leave office, that’s going to be a thing candidates need to contend with. If Clinton’s position is that she can’t take a public stance on any issue that has some sort of pending business before this White House, then she’s not going to be able to take a position on, well, anything.

And she’s already shown that on some issues, she is willing to take a position. Clinton came out in favor of the Iran deal, for example, despite the fact that its fate remains up in the air in Congress.

Second, the whole point of a campaign is for voters to get to know the candidates and understand what their respective presidencies might look like. People and reporters and the candidates you are running against ask you questions. You answer them — most of the time. It’s what we do. It’s how voters can feel as though they are making an informed decision come Election Day.

Imagine if Jeb Bush, when asked about the immigration problem in the country, said only: “Look, it’s a complex issue. I am not going to say anything about it until I am in the White House.” There would be massive outrage — and rightly so. Bush would be accused of obfuscating for purely political reasons. Which, of course, would be what he was doing.

Beyond the question of the Keystone XL Pipeline, Clinton has received criticism from environmentalists for her support for off-shore drilling and fracking. It is also doubtful that she would take effective action on climate change considering the amount of money she receives from the petroleum industry.

Clinton also tried to triangulate on the Planned Parenthood videos, leading to headlines such as Hillary Clinton Calls Planned Parenthood Videos ‘Disturbing’

Hillary Clinton has staunchly defended Planned Parenthood in the wake of recently released videos that an anti-abortion group claims to show employees with the organization discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue.

But, in a new interview, she calls the graphic videos “disturbing” and says there should be a national investigation into that practice.

“I have seen pictures from them and obviously find them disturbing,” the Democratic presidential candidate told the New Hampshire Union Leader on Tuesday in regards to the videos, which were released by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. “Planned Parenthood is answering questions and will continue to answer questions.”

She did also defend Planned Parenthood in general, but undermined them in fighting off the right wing attacks with statements such as this. As I discussed previously, right wing organizations with a history of distorting the facts are used the tapes to present a false claim that Planned Parenthood is selling fetal tissue. In reality, the tapes show that they were negotiating over fees for collection, preservation, and transport of fetal tissue which was donated for biomedical research.  This is both legal and conventional. It is no different than when I do a pap smear and Medicare or private insurance companies pay me for collecting and arranging transport of the specimen to a lab. This does not mean that I am “selling” cervical cells and  Planned Parenthood is not “selling” fetal tissue. With Republicans using this false attack to threaten to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, Clinton should be defending them on this point, not calling it “disturbing” and calling for a national investigation into a practice which is fully legal.

Clinton continued to undermine abortion rights in saying, “I have said for more than 22 years that abortion should be legal, safe and rare.” Reproductive rights advocates such as Katha Pollitt in her book Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, have criticized this statement for reducing the status of abortion rights and  stigmatizing women who do have abortions. Jessica Valenti has written, “Agreeing with anti-choice activists on even that single word hurts women and the cause of reproductive rights.” Clinton has also upset defenders of womens’ rights in the past with her support for parental notification laws.  This is just a small part of Clinton’s tendency to compromise liberal principles, often siding with the religious right on social/cultural issues.

Update: The Hill reports, Clinton’s habit of dodging key issues draws Democrats’ fire:

Even Democrats who are not Sanders partisans are concerned about Clinton’s sometimes-opaque comments on the campaign trail.

“What people are looking for is to know what’s in her heart,” said strategist Jamal Simmons.

Further fueling concern are a number of recent polls that have shown Clinton performing very poorly when voters are asked about her honesty and trustworthiness. Last week, a Quinnipiac poll showed Coloradans asserting by an almost 2-1 margin that Clinton was not honest or trustworthy: 62 percent said she was not, whereas only 34 percent she was. Respondents in Iowa distrusted Clinton 59 percent to 33 percent, and those in Virginia distrusted her 55 percent to 39 percent.

Keystone is far from the only issue on which Clinton has bobbed and weaved.

On the minimum wage, a key issue for many liberals, she has backed a minimum of $15 an hour for fast food workers in New York but has not stipulated a nationally mandated figure.

She avoided taking an unequivocal position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) even as the related debate over fast-track trade authority roiled Congress last month — and her position remains unclear.

Additional examples of Clinton’s habit of trying to avoid taking positions on the issues were also noted in the article.

Claire McCaskill Is Wrong–Bernie Sanders Is Not Too Liberal, Hillary Clinton Is Too Conservative

LANHAM, MD - MAY 5:  U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at a town hall meeting at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 26 office May 5, 2015 in Lanham, Maryland. Sanders, who announced announced his candidacy for president on April 30, discussed a range of issues and took questions from the audience. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Claire McCaskil, a supporter of Hillary Clinton, claimed that Bernie Sanders is, “is too liberal to gather enough votes in this country to become president” on Morning Joe. Sanders replied in an interview with Bloomberg News:

“To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time that a colleague has attacked me,” said Sanders, a Vermont socialist who joined the presidential race about two months ago, in an interview with Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. “You’ll have to ask Senator McCaskill why.”

“Do I believe, in opposition to Senator McCaskill, that we need trade policies that are fair to the American worker, and not just benefit CEOs and large corporations?” Sanders said. “I plead guilty.”

Sanders said he “absolutely” believes in a single-payer health care system and opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

McCaskill is wrong in saying that Sanders is too liberal. The real problem is that Hillary Clinton is too conservative. As I discussed last week, Sanders’ views are becoming mainstream. Sanders contrasted his views with those of Hillary Clinton when interviewed by Diane Rehm two weeks ago, with excerpts posted here.

McCaskill also complained that the media has given Sanders a pass in not mentioning he is a socialist, but this has been constantly noted in media coverage. Actually he calls himself a Democratic Socialist, with views more similar to European Social Democrats than hard-core socialists. Sanders  has not only supported a role for the private enterprise, his policies in Burlington turned out to be quite favorable for business growth. He discussed his economic views with MSNBC last month:

I think there is obviously an enormously important role for the free market and for entrepreneurial activity. I worry how free the free market is. In sector after sector, you have a small number of companies controlling a large part of the sector.

Certainly, in my view, the major banks should be broken up. We want entrepreneurs and private businesses to create wealth. No problem. But what we’re living in now is what I would call—what Pope Francis calls—a casino-type capitalism, which is out of control, where the people on top have lost any sense of responsibility for the rest of the society. Where it’s just “It’s all me. It’s all me. And to heck with anybody else.” I want to see the result of that wealth go to the broad middle class of this country and not just to a handful of people.

No, Sanders is not too liberal. Clinton is too conservative. In February Truth-Out had a post on Five Reasons No Progressive Should Support Hillary Clinton, which is worth reading–and there are several more reasons besides what is in that article.

Besides the economic differences which have dominated the campaign so far, it was Sanders who, reviewing the same intelligence as Hillary Clinton, voted against the Iraq war. Hillary Clinton not only voted for the war, she went to the right of other Democrats who voted to authorize force in falsely claiming there was a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. She showed she did not learn from her mistake when she continued to advocate for increased military intervention as Secretary of State. Voters deserve a real choice in the general election on the future direction of our foreign policy, which we will not have in a contest between Hillary Clinton and virtually any Republican.

In an era when the nation is becoming more liberal on social issues, Hillary Clinton’s long-standing conservatism on social/cultural issues also make her too conservative to be the Democratic nominee. This was seen when she was in the Senate when she was a member of The Fellowship, being influenced on social issues by religious conservatives such as Rick Santorum, Sam Brownback, and Joe Lieberman. Clinton’s affiliation with the religious right was seen in her support for the Workplace Religious Freedom Act , a bill introduced by Rick Santorum and opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union for promoting discrimination and reducing access to health care, along with her promotion of restrictions on video games and her introduction of a bill making flag burning a felony. Her social conservatism is also seen in her weak record on abortion rights, such as supporting parental notification laws and stigmatizing women who have abortions with the manner in which she calls for abortion to be “safe, legal and rare.” Until last year she continued to argue that gay marriage should be up to the states, only recently recognizing it as a right.

Clinton has disappointed environmentalists in supporting fracking and off-shore drilling. Her views on the Keystone XL Pipeline is just one of many controversial issues where Clinton has refused to give her opinion. The vast amounts of money she has received from backers of the pipeline lead many environmentalists to doubt that Clinton can be counted on to oppose the pipeline, or take any positions contrary to the wishes of the petroleum industry.

Bernie Sanders voted against the Patriot Act while Clinton supported it. Sanders has spoken out against the illegal NSA surveillance while Clinton has remained quiet, and has an overall poor record on civil liberties. Clinton’s failures to archive her email as required when she was Secretary of State and disclose donations to the Clinton Foundation as she had agreed to are just the latest examples of her long-standing hostility towards government transparency.

Hillary Clinton personifies everything which has been wrong about the Democratic Party. This lack of standing up for principle by Democrats is also probably a major reason why the Republicans dominate in Congress and many state governments. When Democrats hide from liberal principles, they do not give potential Democratic voters a reason to turn out to vote.

Besides interviewing Sanders about McCaskill’s attack, Bloomberg also reported that Sanders is gaining on Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire. A WMUR/CNN poll shows the race to be even tighter in New Hampshire:

Less than two months ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held a 21 percentage point lead over her nearest competitor in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary campaign. Now, her edge is down to 8 percentage points over Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Polls on primary races have historically changed considerably due to people not paying attention early and changes as the campaign progress. Primary voters are far more likely to be persuaded to change their support when choosing among members of their own party than people are likely to be persuaded to vote for candidates of the other party in a general election. Historically voters in Iowa have not made up their minds until just prior to voting, and even a poll from a week earlier is liable to change. An eight point, or even larger margin, can disappear overnight. Results in subsequent states tend to also change rapidly as results from earlier states are available. If Sanders, or another liberal challenger, can upset Clinton in Iowa, or perhaps only keep it close, they are likely to see a considerable bounce going into subsequent primary battles. Clinton still maintains a lead, but is no longer the inevitable candidate.

Related Posts:
Former Clinton Adviser Predicts Bernie Sanders Will Beat Hillary Clinton
Sanders’ Views Becoming More Mainstream Than Clinton’s Conservative Views
Bernie Sanders Contrasts His Views With Those Of Hillary Clinton
What Bernie Sanders Believes
Sanders Surge Surprises Clinton In South Carolina
Hillary Clinton Gets Her Do-Over But Liberals Desire Someone Better
Red Dawn In Vermont? The Real Results Of Bernie Sanders As Mayor
Bernie Sanders Answers Questions And NBC Advises Not To Count Him Out

Left And Right Agree On Why Hillary Clinton’s Views Are To The Right Of The Democratic Mainstream

Timothy Carney, a columnist at The Washington Examiner, has a conservative attack on Democrats of the very worst kind–an attack in which he is correct. Cerney criticizes Democrats for supporting Hillary Clinton, pointing out that Clinton represents everything Democrats say they oppose. He looked at Clinton’s foreign policy record, her relationship with K-Street and lobbyists, and her resistance to government transparency. She is guilty on all three counts, and it is disappointing to see so many Democrats fall in line to hand her the nomination.

Of course such hypocrisy does not apply to every Democrat. I have criticized Clinton for her conservative record on these points, and in other areas,  in previous posts. At some point would like to get together a post outlining them all in the same post. In the meantime, I came across a link to an article on Facebook which does a good job of bringing up many of the points I would make in such a post. From Truth-Out in February, Five Reasons No Progressive Should Support Hillary Clinton. The post is divided into sections on Foreign Policy, Economy, Environment, Civil Liberties, and Culture Wars.

It is not a complete list, but a good compilation and I recommend reading it in full. Additional areas where liberals have disagreed with Clinton include her hard line on the drug war, including opposition to needle exchange programs and support for strict sentencing, her opposition to government transparency,  and Clinton’s opposition to liberal calls for an increase in Social Security.

The question is how many liberals are unaware of how conservative Clinton is, or if they just don’t care about promoting liberal principles.