Doug Ross @ Journal

Hillary, version 3.0

Hillary Clinton, in typical, opportunistic fashion, popped up like one of the moles in the local carny's Whack-a-Mole game Wednesday. She was dispensing hawkish phrases like candy from a Pez dispenser:

...We cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to Iran that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons...

Translated: "I will say anything -- anything -- to pretend to be more conservative than the President on national security, since I know that the Howard Dean, anti-war left can't be counted on to win a national election."

Funny, I did a Google search on Hillary's Iran statements prior to Wednesday. Last year, for instance, on Meet the Press, she addressed Iran with all the clarity of an Anna Nicole Smith lecture on cryptography:

MR. RUSSERT: ...Senator Clinton, if Iran just refuses to stop development of their nuclear program, what do we do? ...you would not rule out a military option? CLINTON: Well, you know, Tim, I don't think that you either rule it in or rule it out. I think that, you know, depending upon circumstances, it's something that, you know, the American government would have to, you know, consider. But, for goodness sakes, I think we are a very long way from beginning to have that conversation, if we ever have to have it.

Well, glad that's cleared up.

The prior Clinton administration's hilarious hijinks with Iran included reportedly provisioning Iranian physicists with blueprints for nuclear weapon componentry -- and that's according to James Risen of the New York Times:

In a [bizarre] scheme that was personally approved by then-President Clinton, the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program. The allegation, detailed in the new book "State of War," by New York Times reporter James Risen, comes as the Iranian nuclear crisis appears to be coming to a head, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urging that Israel be "wiped off the map" and his government announcing last week that it will resume uranium enrichment on Monday. Reports Risen: "It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan [to give Tehran nuclear blueprints] was first approved by Clinton."

Not to worry, Bill Clinton personally assured the West just a few months ago that Iran represented no threat at all:

Ex-president Bill Clinton urged Israelis over the weekend not to overreact to comments by newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recommending that Israel be "wiped off the map." ...[Clinton] warned Israel not to act unilaterally when reacting to terrorist threats, saying that "true peace and security can only come through principled compromise."

Someone forgot to tell Hillary the Hawk.

Like previous Democratic Presidential candidates, it's getting awfully hard to track the Clintonistas' position day-to-day. For the Iraq War, against the Iraq War, no strategy on Iran, mega-hawk strategy on Iran.

If Hillary's posturing were any more transparent, you could read the paper through her at night. And the purported base of her support is none too pleased with the new, GI Jane version of Hillary. Or, as I prefer to call her, "Hillary, version 3.0"