Reply #14: Kerry, Hilary etc. = very intelligent people. I agree with the posters on [View All]

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

other threads that say this was clearly a political calculation on the part of most.

They recognized that the rationales were bogus and that war would be morally wrong.

Most likely, they were afraid, that the war would "go well" (i.e. be really easy, and result in triumphant Augustus Bush riding through the streets of Rome with a laurel on his head), and they would pay a political price.

Basically, cowardice. They were afraid to come out and vote the way they really thought.

Mind you I believed this but still voted for Kerry without reservation. I still have no doubt he'd be a BILLION times better a president, or anything else, than the current one. But I view the IWR "yes" votes as an error by all who cast them, in many instances a moral error as well as a political miscalculation (in retrospect).