In an interview with Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room Friday night, Hillary Clinton dodged a question over her judgment in response to rival Barack Obama. Here’s the script:

Blitzer: I interviewed your rival Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination last night and he had some implied criticism of you saying some of your past decisions do not warrent your stepping up and becoming the next president of the United States.
[clip] Obama: I think it’s important for the American people to look at the judgments they’ve made in the past, and the experienced hands in Washington have not made particularly good judgments; that’s part of the reason were in this circumstance. [end clip]
Blitzer: … you want to respond to Senator Obama?
Clinton: I really regret that anybody would try to politicize this tragedy, I personally knew Benizier Bhutto… I don’t think politics should be playing a role in how our country responds, both on a personal level to the tragedy of this assassination. But furthermore, Pakistan has been unstable for a long time. You know, Benazir Bhutto’s father was deposed, and killed. Obviously we know that President Musharraf came to power in a military coup. So the instability in Pakistan has long predated any of the recent events, and therefore I think you need to have a historic understanding, you need to look at Pakistan as a country that still today the best information we have, wants to have a better standard of living, wants to have a democracy. And the United States should be doing more to promote that. I regret that President Bush’s policies have failed to create that kind of environment, and I hope it’s not too late, I really do. That’s why I’m calling on the president now to begin to make some of the changes, if he has a good relation with President Musharraf, lets have an envoy, lets have this international investigation. Lets do what we know will work to stabilize Pakistan at this time.

What a long winded answer.

The question was do you want to respond to Obama’s criticism that your judgment to vote for Iraq distracted us from efforts in Pakistan?

She did not respond. She alleged that Obama was politicizing a tragic situation, and then went on a long winded stump speech on Pakistan to emphasize her foreign policy credentials. Her notion that questioning her judgment in the wake of a tragedy is politicization is ridiculous. We’re 6 days from Iowa and we need to illuminate these differences. We need to bring them to light, and if Obama makes a credible argument that Clinton’s vote was negligent to realize the shifting of foreign policy emphasis, then we need to address that. If anyone is politicizing a situation it’s Clinton, who is hiding behind Bhutto’s death to shield her from criticism of her judgment.

On October 10, 2002 Sen. Hillary Clinton delivered this speech outlining her authorization for the president to use force in Iraq:

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.

The poor judgment expressed by Mrs. Clinton on such a significant foreign policy decision undermines her claim that she has foreign policy experience. Questions now arise over what decisions she actually made in the White House; Mrs. Clinton claims she was in the room when tough decisions were made, but she didn’t have the White House Security credentials. What experience does her first lady status really give her? Certainly Linda or Barbra Bush are not preparing presidential runs.

And now today Pakistan is in a state of crisis and mourning. Their beloved former prime minister is dead, and an internal terrorist insurgency threatens regional stability. Had the United States not been tied up in Iraq we could have shifted our attention, dramatically, to battling terrorism in the region. Instead, the whole of the intelligence community has been focused on the future of Iraq.

Shouldn’t we blame those who made the judgment to go into Iraq when they had access to national security intelligence?