Clinton: Bush Refrain the 'Height of Irresponsibility'

Jan. 28, 2007 — -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, in a campaign swing through Iowa, rebuked President Bush for saying that the Iraq war will continue into the next administration, whoever wins the White House in 2008. That, said Clinton, was "the height of irresponsibility."

"We should expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office," she said of President Bush.

Clinton's comments at a fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, came after a patron at the Hickory Grove restaurant there addressed the issue that seems to be on so many minds in Iowa.

As Clinton breezed past her booth, the woman urgently implored, "Please stop this war. Do something."

Clinton kept moving but replied quickly, "We're trying. We're trying. We're working hard on that."

Clinton also said she regrets her 2002 vote to authorize force in Iraq, and spoke out on the issue at multiple stops, perhaps in an effort to set her self apart from other 2008 presidential candidates.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., often points out that he spoke forcefully against the war in 2002, and since he was not in the Senate at the time he never voted to authorize the use of force.

Clinton suggested that voters should focus on the future not the past.

"I oppose this escalation: I think we should do everything we can to oppose this war," she said. "That's easy to say, and everybody coming to Iowa is going to say it. Doesn't matter what they did or didn't do five years ago. Everybody's going to say it. And I want to be honest with you, because this is about life and death."

She went on to suggest that she thinks Democrats have to work with Republicans in Congress to stop the war, emphasizing the importance of a non-binding bipartisan resolution in opposition to the president's plan to send more troops to Iraq. She said such a resolution would be the only way to send a message to the "other end of Pennsylvania Avenue."

Clinton again said if she knew in 2002 what she knows now, "there never would have been a vote, and I never would have voted to give this president the authority [to go to war]."

On Saturday, Clinton also conceded she takes responsibility for that vote.

"I've taken responsibility for my vote, but there are no do-overs in life. I wish there were," she said at Democratic party headquarters.