Is Hillary trying to re-write history?

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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-ushill0722,0,139405.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

Just after 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, a drowsy Hillary Rodham Clinton stood in the Senate chamber during the all-night debate on Iraq and declared matter-of-factly: "I have called for the strategic redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq for several years."

That surprised anti-war activists camped out near the Capitol, listening to the speech on the radio. Clinton, they knew, had supported withdrawal from Iraq for less than two years, 20 months to be exact.

"We thought it was ridiculous that she was trying to rewrite history," said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, an anti-war group that has staged protests at Clinton's public appearances since she voted for the Iraq invasion in October 2002. "She's moving back her own timetable ... We all let out a collective guffaw when we heard her say that."

Was Clinton's statement a verbal typo, a gaffe by a woman who desperately needed a nap? Or was she trying to backdate her record to make it seem like she's advocated withdrawal longer than she actually has?

She's said it before

Clinton opposed calls for redeployment until Nov. 15, 2005, when she voted with senators of both parties for a "phased redeployment" of troops without a specific timetable, her staff said.

A Newsday review of her speeches, press releases, votes and committee transcripts revealed no evidence that she publicly backed redeployment before the vote.

Still, Clinton has recently claimed her call for withdrawal came much earlier. On Jan. 18, 2007, she told PBS correspondent Gwen Ifill, "You know, for more than a year-and-a-half I've been in favor of phased redeployment of our troops ... based on a comprehensive strategy."

She made virtually the same remark to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News a day later, suggesting she favored redeployment during the summer of 2005.

In fact, Clinton was advocating a significantly different approach at the time. In July 2005, she co-sponsored a bill with Connecticut Democrat Joe Lieberman to increase the Army's strength by 80,000 troops to deal with manpower shortages caused by Iraq and Afghanistan.

Clinton's language in the Democratic debates also has raised questions about the timing of her anti-war stance.

In the April 26 Democratic debate in South Carolina, for example, Clinton said she and other Democrats had advocated a withdrawal timetable "for a number of years."

But 10 months earlier, in a speech booed by anti-war activists, Clinton said it was not "smart strategy to set a date certain" for withdrawal.