|
Sen. Clinton credits faith for getting her through Lewinsky ordeal |
|
By Sam Youngman
|
|
Posted: 06/04/07 10:14 PM [ET] |
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) faced questions about the two issues most haunting her White House campaign – her vote to go to war with Iraq and her husband’s infidelity – during a forum on faith and politics Monday night.
Moderator and CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien asked Clinton about the moral responsibility associated with her war vote and the role faith played in her life after former President Clinton acknowledged his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
The first gave the senator a chance to take an indirect swipe at ex-Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), and the second was handled with a segue into the role religion played during her time in the White House.
While O’Brien and the panel at George Washington University mixed up the questions, an audible hush and in some pockets, groans could be heard when the moderator asked Clinton about the role faith played during the former president’s very public scandal involving Lewinsky.
Clinton said faith helped her immensely when she was “tested in ways that are publicly known and not so well known or in some cases not known at all.”
“I’m not sure I would’ve gotten through it without my faith,” Clinton said, adding later, “I am very grateful that I had a grounding in faith to give me the courage and strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the rest of the world [thought].”
The senator later joked that if she hadn’t prayed before, her time in the White House surely would have led her to it.
Clinton also faced questions about her 2002 vote on the Iraq war.
After Edwards over the weekend escalated his criticism of lawmakers who supported the war but refused to apologize for their votes at a New Hampshire debate, Clinton attempted to guide the discussion toward Democratic unity and the future of the ending the war.
But that was Sunday night.
At the Monday night forum with Clinton, Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) alternately taking the stage and questions, Clinton offered an indirect shot at Edwards, saying lawmakers don’t “get off the hook” just for apologizing.
O’Brien pointed out that Clinton has never explicitly apologized for her vote, and Clinton stuck to her oft-repeated stance that if she had known then what she knows now, she would not have voted the way she did.
“Sometimes it turns out you’re right, and sometimes it doesn’t,” Clinton said.
“I think that is taking responsibility, and I don’t think you get off the hook [by apologizing],” Clinton added. “I don’t think you turn the page by saying ‘that was an unfortunate outcome.’”
Former Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.), a top Edwards adviser, told The Hill after the forum that he didn’t perceive Clinton’s remarks as a dig at Edwards. But he added that if it was, then the senator was talking about a number of lawmakers who have expressed regret and apologized for their votes.
The forum, hosted by the progressive religious group Sojourners and carried live on CNN, featured a lively exchange that veered, for the most part, away from some of the more canned aspects of the candidates’ rehearsed stump speeches.
About 1,300 people crowded into the auditorium and warmly received each of the candidates and their responses.
Edwards seemed most at ease, as the issue of poverty was front and center. The former senator spoke at length about the work he has done on the issue since the 2004 election.
Edwards also talked about the role religion played in his life after the death of his son Wade.
“When Elizabeth and I lost our son, we were nonfunctional for a while, and the Lord got me through that,” he said.
Obama touched mainly on the biblical question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The senator referred to this phrase when asked about changing the approach, or lack thereof, to poverty in modern politics.
|
