Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be the first Democratic presidential nominee who was for something before she was against it. But her turnaround on President Obama’s trade deal rivals John Kerry’s famous flip-flop on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Clinton was one of the most vocal and enthusiastic supporters of Obama’s ambitious 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.
She cited its “strong protection for workers and the environment” and its promise of “better jobs with higher wages and safer working conditions for women, migrant workers and others too often in the past excluded from the formal economy.”
But she wasn’t for running for president then, just working for one. Now, with her eye on Obama’s job, she’s not such a big fan.
That’s because the party’s left (with Big Labor leading the way) has vowed to kill the deal and has made it a litmus test — and Clinton won’t stand up to the unions.
Oh, she spent weeks avoiding the issue. Pressed to take a stand, she kept dodging the question, insisting that she’d “wait and see what the deal is, and then I will tell you what I think about it.”
That brought even more pressure from the Democrats’ hard-left wing and rivals Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley.
So on Thursday, she finally allowed as how, were she still in the Senate, she’d “probably” vote no on giving Obama fast-track trade authority — “at this point.”
Talk about a profile in courage.
This tells you much about where Hillary is headed in this campaign: Any breaks with the president will be to his far left.
Worse, it shows her utter lack of any real core beliefs. All that matters is what works to her political advantage at the moment.
Yes, Hillary Clinton is true to her word — her most recent word, anyway.