The Trouble With Opportunism

Some of the people supporting Hillary Clinton's campaign seem to me to be doing it because they agree with her relatively hawkish approach to foreign policy issues. Others are supporting her for careerist reasons. Others are supporting her because they think she has other virtues that outweigh problems with her relatively hawkish approach. And some people are just poorly informed. But there's a curious fifth faction in town whispering in peoples' ears in a manner that (intentionally) makes it difficult to do proper journalism on the subject. This group has an approach to foreign policy that's very similar to my own and insists that Hillary secretly agrees with us but needs to play the hawk in order to be politically viable as a woman.

I don't really believe she's only acting, nor do I really believe that such an act would be necessary, but either way James Fallows who's obviously heard this line as well makes the important rejoinder that this is basically irrelevant. If Clinton believes she needs to act like a hawk on the campaign trail, she'll believe the same thing while in office so either way it's trouble.