War foes applaud Clinton’s Iraq stand

WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., drew only modest boos at a gathering of liberal activists Wednesday, a sign of how well her changing position on Iraq is playing in the anti-war wing of her party.

Last year, speaking at the Campaign for America’s Future conference, Clinton was loudly hissed when she said it is not “smart strategy” to set a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq. This year, the same group applauded Clinton as she described a bill she introduced to deauthorize the war and the recent vote she cast against funding it, both positions she has adopted since becoming a candidate for president in January.

“She’s been kind of slow to come to the anti-war position, but she’s there now,” said Robert Borosage, the co-director of the Washington, D.C.-based group that hosted the conference. “Her position on the war has improved dramatically.”

Activists from Code Pink, an anti-war group whose members often wear pink uniforms, waved signs that said “Lead Us Out of Iraq” and shouted the same message at Clinton as she spoke. “I love coming here,” she said with a laugh, adding: “I see the signs, ‘Get us out of Iraq.’ That is what we are trying to do.”

But Bob Fertik, a liberal blogger who attended the conference last year and did not like Clinton’s remarks then, said he appreciates where the candidate is going. “This time she tried to be with us,” he said.

Clinton’s remarks were the latest sign of the dramatic shift in the war debate among those in the Democratic field. A year ago, future Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden, of Delaware, Christopher Dodd, of Connecticut, and Barack Obama, of Illinois, as well as Clinton, opposed a Senate bill sponsored by Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and John Kerry, D-Mass., that would have set a deadline of July 2007 for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq.

In more recent votes, all four candidates have supported legislation that includes timelines.

“Just about every one of them in the past mouthed that timelines are a bad idea,” Feingold said in a interview. “Now they are voting with me, so I think they must be hearing it from people.”