Hillary Clinton, in her foreign policy interview in The Atlantic, comes across as super hawkish. So hawkish, in fact, that the neoconservative flagship Weekly Standard magazine literally republished it as a house editorial. Essentially, they’re saying, Clinton speaks for them.
Neocons <3 Hillary Clinton
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. His book on democracy, The Reactionary Spirit, was published 0n July 16. You can purchase it here.
The Standard piece isn’t complicated: it simply blockquotes from the sections of Clinton’s interview on Israel, Iran, Syria, and “American power.” The implicit point is that Clinton echoes the Standard’s neoconservative criticisms of Obama’s foreign policy. She says Obama is too open to Iran, too harsh on Israel, too reticent to help the Syrian rebels, and too afraid of intervention in foreign affairs in general. So, as Standard editor-in-chief Bill Kristol explains in a note before the piece, they’re happy to welcome Hillary to their point of view:
Editor's note: I think it was the great Maimonides who taught us, "You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes." So THE WEEKLY STANDARD is happy to feature this special guest editorial on President Obama's foreign policy failures (excerpted verbatim from the Jeffrey Goldberg's fine interview). - William Kristol
This stunt is exactly the sort of thing Democrats to Clinton’s left are likely to cite in any challenge to her candidacy. “Clinton is so right-wing on foreign policy that the Weekly Standard literally republished her thoughts as a house editorial” would be a pretty damning indictment in a lot of Democratic eyes (though Clinton definitely isn’t as hawkish as Kristol is). For more expanded thoughts on how Clinton’s interview exposed her weaknesses as a candidate, read this Ezra Klein piece.
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