Lee Harris has a really good article up over at TCS Daily that I highly recommend reading. It takes a look at the statement Hillary Clinton made over the weekend in Iowa. She demanded that President Bush finish up everything in Iraq before she (presumably, at least in her mind) takes office. I mentioned it here and called her unserious. Harris uses a look at history to dismantle that arrogant statement she made.
There is, however, a problem with Senator Clinton's analogy—a problem so serious that it forces us to wonder if she genuinely understands the nature of the office that she is currently seeking, and to see what I mean let us go back to the case of Mr. Lincoln.
When Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President, he inherited a mess in comparison with which Iraq pales to insignificance. The states in the Deep South had already left the Union. The previous President, James Buchanan, had not lifted a finger to keep the vast majority of Federal forts and arsenals from falling into the hands of the new Confederacy. Buchanan's position was that the Constitution did not allow for states to secede, but at the same time, neither did it allow the Federal government to use coercion to keep them in the Union against their will. So what to do, except to do nothing?
The biggest mess of all, however, arose from the fact that the newly inaugurated President's government was still in control of two remaining military outposts in the Confederate States, Fort Moultrie in Florida and Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Had Buchanan given the order to evacuate both forts while he was still President, then Lincoln would not have been faced with the dreadful decision of whether to abandon them or to re-supply them when it was his turn to be President. By abandoning these forts, Lincoln knew he might avoid a civil war; by re-supplying them, he knew he would almost certainly begin one. Yet by abandoning the forts, Lincoln also knew that he would be abandoning the Union. Thus the choice that confronted Lincoln on obtaining the office of Presidency was the hideous alternative of disunion or civil war—in short, the mother of all messes.
Historians have, by and large, been exceedingly harsh on Buchanan. He should have done something decisive, the way Lincoln did. Yet Buchanan himself had no more choices than Lincoln did. Yes, Buchanan in theory could have acted decisively: he might have decisively let "the erring sisters" go in peace, or else he could have decisively started the blood bath that became known as the American Civil War. But in either case, Lincoln would have inherited the horrific consequences of Buchanan's very decisiveness—a raging civil war already in progress or a Confederacy of Southern States whose legitimacy had already been recognized by the North. In other words, no matter what Buchanan did or didn't do, Lincoln was bound to become President with an enormous mess on his hands. But that, we must remind ourselves—and Senator Clinton–is the nature of the American Presidency. If you become President, the chances are very good that you will have to start by taking responsibility for someone else's mess.
Just like Bush had to own the failures of the Clinton administration to do anything about Osama bin Laden before he had a chance to unleash 19 hijackers and cause 9/11. There is a certain justice in handing the mess right back onto another Clinton, but I really doubt she is going to win for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that she really does not understand history and how we got to where we are.
Please do read the whole thing – it is worth it.
