Hillary Comes out Against TPP Today or Did She?

She certainly raised eyebrows today:

"As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it," Clinton told Judy Woodruff of "PBS Newshour."

"I have said from the very beginning that we had to have a trade agreement that would create good American jobs, raise wages and advance our national security. And I still believe that's the high bar we have to meet," she said. "I have been trying to learn as much as I can about the agreement. But I'm worried. I'm worried about currency manipulation not being part of the agreement. We've lost American jobs to the manipulations that countries, particularly in Asia, have engaged in. I'm worried the pharmaceutical companies may have gotten more benefits -- and patients and consumers fewer. I think there are still a lot of unanswered questions."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-tpp_56157832e4b0fad1591a9289

Of course, both Sanders and Martin O'Malley aren't happy about this and are chiding her for being late to the party.

Progressives have been pushing Clinton for months to take a position on TPP, since Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), two of her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, came out against it long ago.

O'Malley criticized Clinton for her foot-dragging shortly after the news broke while speaking with reporters at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute conference.

"I was against the Trans-Pacific Partnership months and months ago," he said. "I believe we need to stop stumbling backwards into bad trade deals."

Sanders, speaking at the same conference, said he "will let the media speculate on" whether Clinton would have taken this stance if he weren't in the race. 

"All I can tell you, whether it is the Keystone Pipeline, whether it is TPP, these are issues that I have had a very strong opinion on from day one," he said. "And I can simply say I am delighted that Secretary Clinton is on board ... to be very frank with you, it would have been more helpful to have her on board a few months ago."

To me these criticisms aren't necessarily fair. Is every issue really black and white and can be decided on in a split second? Some are close calls with competing issues. For instance on Keystone or similar deal you could argue that there are the competing interests of economic growth and the environment. 

Daily News Bin has an interesting and fresh interpretation of her stand:

"Hillary Clinton didn’t actually come out against the TPP deal. Instead what she did was brilliant."

Hillary Clinton does not oppose the TPP deal. We know this because she helped negotiate it herself while she was Secretary of State. What she actually said today is that she’s skeptical of it. This is a brilliant political position to take. TPP will already be in place before election day, but for now she can campaign on the premise that she’ll make the deal better. Then once she’s in office she can go back to these same foreign leaders and say “You know that deal I negotiated with you? I just got elected to higher office on a mandate of making it better. So you’re going to have to amend the deal in our favor, or else I won’t be able to negotiate with you on anything else going forward.”

"For better or worse, the media is inaccurately reporting her words today as “Clinton comes out against TPP deal.” Those are fictional headlines. Her actual words were “I don’t believe it’s going to meet the high bar I have set,” which as you can see is completely at odds with what’s being reported. It couldn’t be more obvious that she and Obama are playing good-cop bad-cop when it comes to what he was able to get from them now, and what she’ll be able to get from them later."

http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/hillary-clinton-didnt-actually-come-out-against-the-tpp-deal-instead-what-she-did-was-brilliant/22756/

This was my suspicion from the start-she ddn't say she opposes it just that it can use improvement.

But as DNB rightly says this is how the media is. They are determined to put her in a simplistic box: you are either for it or against it, there is no middle ground or grey areas. It's black and white

You support TPP you're a mustachioed enemy of American workers. You oppose it you're a Saint-ie you are Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

"And so Hillary Clinton has done what extremely intelligent politicians like her are so good at: by expressing mere skepticism, she’s put herself in a position to make the deal a much better one once she’s in office. And by simply allowing the media to do their usual dishonestly oversimplified thing, she’ll gain more support from the unpleasable progressives. And she’s pulled all of this off without reversing her position or being dishonest in any way.

"Like it or not, this is the only way progress ever happens in a democracy: skilled politicians who are on the correct side of the issues, and who are smart enough to figure out how to get things done despite being stuck with a convoluted system and a dumb voting base. Progress never happens simply because a politician simplistically says “I’m for this” or “against that.”

This is the sort of thing that Emoprogs can never understand. sThey think it's just simplistically saying 'I'm for this or against that.' Full stop.

They refuse to acknowledge the gap between being a political candidate and an elected official in the act of governing.

As a corrective to such simplistic thinking I always recommend Garry Wills who scandalized conventional wisdom 45 years ago by observing that elections don't decide policy.

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Conservative-Garry-Wills/dp/0385089775/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1441214018&sr=1-1&keywords=confessions+of+a+conservative

It's the same thing with so much progress. Lincoln could never have been elected if he had admitted he wanted to end slavery. FDR couldn't have done the New Deal or later to fight World War II if he had admitted this is what needed to be done in 1940. 

As for Hillary's stand today it's not a lie or departure from what she's said in the past. 

"Clinton has said she was waiting to see the final deal before making a decision. In her most recent book, Hard Choices, she spoke out against a key provision of the deal known as "Investor-State Dispute Settlement." That program allows corporations to challenge domestic laws and regulations before an international tribunal."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-tpp_56157832e4b0fad1591a9289

So she hasn't simply made up a position to copy Bernie. But that's not how this will be spun. 

P.S. By the way this is the big difference between Bernie and Hillary-Bernie just-as Lawrence Lessig puts it-promises you the moon. 

Hillary knows a lot more about what it takes to achieve that. It's more than just making a campaign promise. 

The dishonest aspect of George Bush Sr's tax hike was irresponsibly promising 'No new taxes' in the first place. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawrence-lessig-bernie-sanders-is-running-a-campaign-to-win-not-to-govern_55dca008e4b0a40aa3ac4b6e