Tonight Hillary Clinton called out Bernie Sanders for consistently invoking his 2002 Iraq vote, saying, “I do not believe a vote in 2002 is a plan to defeat ISIS in 2016.”
Hillary Clinton is right. Invoking his Iraq War vote is Sanders’ only tool against criticism of his thin foreign policy credentials.
Politico: Sanders’s campaign often invokes his vote against the Iraq war as a trump card against attacks over his foreign policy chops. “‘And oh yeah, he voted against the Iraq war,’ Briggs added. Sanders’ campaign often invokes his 2002 Iraq vote as a trump card against his primary rival’s mounting attacks over his foreign policy chops.” [Politico, 1/30/16]
Daily Beast: On foreign policy, Bernie Sanders “had no chops beyond saying I voted against Iraq.” [Tomasky column, Daily Beast, 2/5/16]
Asked about North Korea, Sanders did not mention North Korea in his answer and talked about Clinton’s Iraq War vote. “Senator Bernie Sanders was asked on Sunday about the North Korean missile launch that took place while he was appearing the previous night on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and he answered without once discussing how he would contain or confront the renegade nuclear state, or persuade China to control its ally. In fact, he never once mentioned North Korea, telling his interviewer, John Dickerson of CBS News, that Hillary Clinton had ‘voted for the war’ — the Iraq war, 14 years ago — and reassuring him that ‘I can put together a strong team to provide great foreign policy.’” [New York Times, 2/8/16]