At last night's debate, after Obama responded to a "ticking time bomb" question by saying that torture is never acceptable, Clinton seemed to say the same thing. The only problem: As we noted earlier, less than a year ago, she told the Daily News that torture was usually wrong but sometimes acceptable in extreme situations.
Now, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson has offered an explanation of sorts for the shift: “Upon reflection and after meeting with former generals and others, Senator Clinton does not believe that we should be making narrow exceptions to this policy based on hypotheticals.”
Not to be cynical, but it's always worth reading such statements carefully. In this case, what does "based on hypotheticals" mean? What if it was based on a real situation that actually came before her as president? Has she really committed to never doing it, or just to not talking about doing it in advance based on hypotheticals? After the jump: her torture comments at the debate.
Sen. Clinton Q and A at the MSNBC New Hampshire debate:
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, this is the number three man in Al Qaida. We know there's a bomb about to go off, and we have three days, and we know this guy knows where it is. Should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation?
CLINTON: You know, Tim, I agree with what Joe and Barack have said. As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy period. I met with those same three- and four-star retired generals, and their principal point -- in addition to the values that are so important for our country to exhibit -- is that there is very little evidence that it works.
CLINTON: Now, there are a lot of other things that we need to be doing that I wish we were: better intelligence; making, you know, our country better respected around the world; working to have more allies. But these hypotheticals are very dangerous because they open a great big hole in what should be an attitude that our country and our president takes toward the appropriate treatment of everyone. And I think it's dangerous to go down this path.
RUSSERT: The guest who laid out this scenario for me with that proposed solution was William Jefferson Clinton last year. So he disagrees with you.
CLINTON: Well, he's not standing here right now.
(APPLAUSE)
RUSSERT: So there is a disagreement?
CLINTON: Well, I'll talk to him later.
(LAUGHTER
Comments (1)
She was wrong then, now she's right. If only every candidate were so inconsistent.