Bill Clinton: I was for the war before I was against it

Yesterday, Bill Clinton spoke in Iowa about how he was against the war in Iraq from the beginning:

We need to “go back to fiscal responsibility and reclaim our economic sovereignty. That’ll require people like me, who got five tax cuts that I should not have gotten, in my income group, when we had soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers.”

Apparently, we should be asking for Bill Clinton's OK on everything before we proceed. He'll resent us otherwise, and then whatever will we do?

Unfortunately for Slick Willie, people pay attention when he talks. And he can't have press records locked up indefinitely in the Clinton Library. And Allah at Hot Air has been doing some digging.

First, some notable quotables from 2003:

May 19, 2003- (Associated Press): “Former President Bill Clinton accused President Bush of spending more time fighting the war on terrorism than on domestic issues during a commencement speech at Tougaloo College. ‘I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but we can’t be forever strong abroad if we don’t keep getting better at home,” Clinton said Sunday to a crowd of about 8,000. […] The Bush administration, Clinton said, ‘is still focused on defeating terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and that’s good, but not good enough. The power of our example is just as important as our military might.’”

April 14, 2003 (Minneapolis Star Tribune): “In his first speech in Minnesota since leaving office, former President Bill Clinton on Sunday praised President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq. But he criticized Bush’s domestic priorities and urged the administration to offer North Korea aid and a pledge of nonaggression in exchange for an end to that country’s missile and nuclear weapons programs.” [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 4/14/03]

So... I guess he means we should go to war with Iraq, but just not make it our number one priority?

Allah then points us to this:

In the crucial weekend before to the final breakdown of diplomacy in March, Mr Clinton was a guest of Mr Blair’s at Chequers where the pair discussed the crisis…
Three days after his Chequers meeting, Mr Clinton made a rare public appeal to his successor, George Bush, to give the UN weapons inspectors more time.

That story was posted April 25, 2003. This brings us to Slick Willie being for the war on April 19th, against it April 25th, and come May, for it again.

I think my head's starting to hurt. But fasten your seatbelts, folks, because we're just getting started.

In March of 2003, he wrote a piece for The Guardian telling us to trust Tony Blair:

Last October, when I spoke at the Labour conference in Blackpool, I supported the efforts of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to renew efforts to eliminate Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and to try to accomplish this through the UN.
In November, the UN security council adopted unanimously resolution 1441, giving Saddam a "final opportunity" to disarm, after 12 years of defying UN resolutions requiring him to do so. The resolution made it clear that continued sanctions were not sufficient and that continued defiance would lead to serious consequences.

...

In the post-cold war world, America and Britain have been in tough positions before: in 1998, when others wanted to lift sanctions on Iraq and we said no; in 1999 when we went into Kosovo to stop ethnic cleansing. In each case, there were voices of dissent. But the British-American partnership and the progress of the world were preserved. Now in another difficult spot, Prime Minister Blair will have to do what he believes to be right. I trust him to do that and hope that Labor MPs and the British people will too.

So in March, he had no opinion except to trust Tony Blair's decision (no mention of trusting President Bush, of course). Then, he was for the war, then against it, and then for it again.

Finally, Hot Air readers give us the results, from June of 2004:

Former President Clinton has revealed that he continues to support President Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq but chastised the administration over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

“I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over,” Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book “My Life.”…
Pressed on whether the Iraq war was worth the cost to the United States, Clinton said he would not have undertaken the war until after U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix “finished his job.”…

“I want it to have been worth it, even though I didn’t agree with the timing of the attack,” Clinton said.

So, come 2004, he was for the war, but against the timing.

So, let's recap. In March of 2003, he offered no opinion except "trust Tony Blair." In April 2003, he was for the war, and then against the war. Come May of 2003, he was for the war again. Then, in June of 2004, he was for the war, but just didn't like the timing. Now, in November of 2007, he's been against the war from the very beginning. Whew!

Surprisingly, the DU is calling BS on his new line, which means that us conservatives are thinking the same way as the far-left loonies at the Democratic Underground.

You're not so slick, Willie. Not this time.

Hat Tip: AllahPundit at Hot Air