Latest news from the US, Hillary Clinton is receiving a LOT of financial support from the republican right.
Writing in today's Sunday Times conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan says The New York Times columnist David Brooks, a template for responsible, moderate conservative opinion, gushed a little. Clinton has long been under fire from the "netroots" left, the internet political activists, for her original vote for the Iraq war and refusal to disavow it.

Then last weekend, in a total of five appearances on five different Sunday talk shows, Clinton went further, as Brooks recounted, with a smile on his face: "On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Clinton could have vowed to vacate Iraq. Instead, she delivered hawkish mini-speeches that few Republicans would object to. She listed a series of threats and interests in the region and made it clear that she'd be willing to keep US troops there to handle them.

The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots' self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don't blow it by drifting into cuckoo land.

Cuckoo land now means any firm indication that Clinton might actually abort the occupation of Iraq in any meaningful way in her first term of office. If you want to see just how successful President Bush and General Petraeus have been in buying more time – and $190 billion next year – for an indefinite American occupation of the Middle East, Brooks's provocation tells you most of what you need to know.

Last Wednesday night, for good measure, all three main candidates for the Democratic nomination refused to pledge that all troops would be out of Iraq in their first term of office. That was news enough. But Clinton, earlier that day in the Senate, moved one step even further to the pro-war right by voting for a nonbinding resolution that declares the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a "terrorist entity".

Since this terrorist entity is part of the Iranian state, this was understandably regarded by many as a small but necessary congressional step towards authorising war on Iran. None of her rivals in the presidential campaign voted with her. No wonder neoconservatives are taking a second look at a woman they once demonised.

Clinton appears to be following Bush's script. Republican bloggers were near ecstatic. From the point of view of some it was win-win. Patrick Ruffini wrote on a leading Republican website: "Hillary is morphing into a George W Bush Democrat


Mudcat Democrats should take note, don't be conned by the one party system....Ake