No, I never would have voted for Hillary Clinton anyway, but there are some things that I wish that she had said while campaigning in regards to the Iraq War and her vote to authorize it. I wouldn't agree with every point that Hillary would have made in my debate-speech that I’m writing for her, but this is how I would have deflected (instead of running from) the issue of her vote. It might possibly have placated, or at least somewhat silenced the far-left base of the Democratic Party, and probably would have made much sense to moderates and even many Republicans. She could have had her cake and eaten too, while sounding pretty damn presidential:

“Knowing what I know now, no, I would not have voted to authorize the use of military force against Saddam Hussein. If I knew then that Saddam Hussein did not in fact possess WMD’s at that time and if I knew that President Bush would so badly bungle the ensuing occupation, then I would have been content in continuing the use of international sanctions to keep Saddam in his “box”. And while I feel that we are all misled by the Bush administration, and in some cases out-right lied to, there are issues that my opponent, Senator Obama refuses to consider when arguing this point.”

“President Clinton’s administration, and most of Congress throughout the ‘90s, thought for sure that Saddam Hussein did in fact possess WMD’s. That was what the intelligence throughout that decade pointed to, as well as the fact that Saddam Hussein not only played cat-and-mouse with the UN inspectors for about 7 years and acted as a guilty party, but he had actually used WMDs against both Iran and his own people – the Kurds of northern Iraq. This was hard evidence that required no intelligence gathering. Not only do we now know that Saddam did not possess actual WMDs in 2003, but we also now know that he kept up this subterfuge so as to keep his arch-enemy, Iran, guessing as to his actual strength so well that even most of Saddam’s own generals did not whether or not Iraq actually possessed WMD’s or not. We also now know that Saddam had the means, technical know-how, and intentions to reconstitute his WMD program within weeks of international sanctions ever being lifted and that he had every intention of restarting his nuclear weapon program as well.”

“Knowing now the cost in lives, treasure, and American prestige that my vote helped to authorize the Bush administration’s bungling invasion of Iraq {pause}…no, in hindsight it would have been better to keep sanctions against Saddam. However, there are aspects of this vote that I do not apologize for nor do I regret. Those are: That we now know for certain that a Saddam WMD will no longer be used against the people of Iraq like they were used to kill thousands of Iraqi Kurds in the late ‘80s. That the majority Shia population of Iraq will no longer live in fear of their dictatorial tormentor. That the American public will no longer have to read or hear about how Saddam Hussein’s military was constantly firing at American aircraft patrolling the “No-Fly Zones” on almost a weekly basis at times; or hearing the serial liar Saddam Hussein playing political games with the UN and the international body politic while doing a fine job of corrupting sanctions and keeping the majority of his own people in abject poverty because he refused to come absolutely clean on his WMD programs. And last of all, as a decent human being respectful of human and civil rights and especially as a woman, I am damn proud that because of my vote that the “rape rooms” of Saddam Hussein’s intelligence apparatus have been put out of action for good.”

“So while the fairly new senator from Illinois, my opponent Barack Obama, tries to claim that he was “right” all along on the issue of authorizing the bumbling Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, those of us who had to vote at the time faced some very serious issues and facts that had been staring America in the face for a long time. While I ultimately regret standing behind this current administration’s insistence to go to war and while the issue could have been handled better by a smarter presidency, let’s not pretend as if there are no redeeming features that came of my affirmative vote to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Those of us who disagree with the Bush administration’s handling of this war and for those of us who felt misled, lied-to, and shouted down, there are also many good things that have come from it and to totally ignore any of the positives gives absolutely no credibility to the fact the Middle East will no longer have to fear an aggressive Saddam Hussein-led Iraq; that the Kurds can probably live in peace; that the majority Shia will probably not have to look down the barrel of a gun anymore while their religious leaders are being assassinated; and women will not be taken from their homes in the middle of the night to hidden rooms where they would be raped while their families were forced to watch.”