Many democrats trusted Bush...and were decieved

[fujiyama]

I was just going through the editorial archives of a school paper. There was a columnist that was a friend of mine when I attended this school (I eventually transferred and lost contact of him). I remember bumping into him on election day of 2000. He was wearing a Gore/Lieberman button and he was excited about winning. He was a middle of the road, left of center type of person.

I transferred a few months before 9/11 but continued to read the paper. He was the kind that was very angry and in complete support of Bush. In all honesty, I was too for a few months (I stopped right around the passage of the PATRIOT ACT).

However this friend of mine continued to support him and even through Powell's presentations of WMD, he supported the administration and the march to war, because he GENUINELY believed what the government had to say. He believed the administration. He believed that the US was going in there to avert a major threat.

I was bored tonight and was going through the archives for the hell of it. I had stopped reading his columns way back fearing he haad been a Zell Miller/Ed Koch type. To my surprise, in recent editorials he was lashing out at Bush.

This may seem like a pointless anecdote, but I believe there are many out there that feel this way. While my friend may have already been a democrat leaner and it may not be too surprising he eventually came back to his senses so to speak, there are probably many out there that feel the same way. These people are probably former Bush voters as well.

Sometimes I see some posts which call anyone that initially supported the war stupid, a fool, a sheep, or worse. While, I never supported the war, and always found it to be incredibly foolish, there are many that did trust the administration in giving them good intelligence. It didn't. The government instead manipulated and pressured the intelligence agencies to tell them what they wanted to hear.

I just hope that people don't take a holier than thou attitude toward people that may have supported the war but are now having doubts about it. It is good that people are finally waking up, and we should do our best to encourage it. Taking such people to F-9/11 may not be a bad idea either.

In that way, Kerry and Edwards too shouldn't be afraid to say, they were lied to (though I think Edwards being on the intelligence comm. has a tougher time - after all Graham did speak out early on) and that they voted for the resolution on whatever knowledge he had.

Ultimately, I must admit I have some respect for those that have openly expressed regret for voting for the war resolution (I think Fienstien did and I've been very critical of her, as did Harry Reid).

Granted, this isn't an excuse for voting for it. I still think it was poor judgement and I never bought Powell's crappy presentation, but we can't begrudge others for wanting to believe what their government tells them.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Powell didn't buy it either.

Granted, this isn't an excuse for voting for it. I still think it was poor judgement and I never bought Powell's crappy presentation, but we can't begrudge others for wanting to believe what their government tells them.<<

Looking back on the televised U.N. thingy... I don't think Powell bought his own presentation either. The following may not refer to the U.N. presentation... however, these words are attributed to Powell... and it was in reference to something they wanted him to present probably to the press.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/printer_060403B.shtml
>>According to the report, the draft contained such questionable material that Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring, "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."<<

[riverwalker]

7. Powell is gutless

because he then DID read it, on TV, before the world. He had his little pointy stick showing us all these trucks and buildings, on COMPUTER generated pictures, not even satellite photos. He was a major part in selling the lie.

[Blue Wally]

10. Not gutless

Sec Powell is an extremely loyal man who will take a HBP in the arm for the "home team".

[leesa]

11. Gutless and a traitor. He knew he was lying to the UN but he was too

much of a coward to refuse to go through with it.

[Skidmore]

2. After the 2000 election,

I don't understand how any Dem could trust *.

[shraby]

3. I believed Bush when he went into Iraq.

After an election, I always just kinda let the government do its thing, and when he said what he did about Iraq, I figured he knew more than I did cause of the intel he would be getting. I really didn't start paying attention until the Democratic primarys then I started looking around and found this site and others. Wow was I wrong! I'll never not pay attention to the government again. It's too dangerous.

[G_j]

4. some should have known better

a quote from Karen Kwiatkowski:
(Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the Pentagon's Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq's weapons and ties to terrorists.)

from the article "Bagged and Tagged"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski82.ht...


"Normal people (this apparently excludes most members of Congress) would wonder why you would believe anything from the CIA or DIA on Iraq anyway, given we had had no real in-country assets or visibility for years. Not even a military attaché, or a tiny hovel of a CIA station in Baghdad or Basra. Last CIA agent we had in Ba-ath country was an illegal member of the Hans Blix team. "

[malatesta1137]

5. Bush NEVER fooled me, not even for a second

I always loathed him and everything that I feared before he stole office happened in doubles, triples.

[Upfront]

6. Dean Knew

He did not fool Howard Dean either. I know we are tired of hearing that but Kerry should have should not have been sucked in. I think he did know but did not think it wise to oppose the war when he was planning to run for President. Bob Grahan knew, Carl Levin knew, and ect ect. Millions around the world knew.

[riverwalker]

8. Well, I will always "begrudge" them

Always. The information was readily available, from credible weapons inspectors, and former intelligence officers, people who would know, that there were NO weapons. It was information accessable to everyone, IF they wanted to know. Most didn't, and it's for them to figure out why they were so eager to go to war. So willing to send others to die and to kill, without being bothered to do 5 minutes of research about why. The info was there at the time.

[searchingforlight]

9. I never supported the war but then I lived through Viet Nam and remember

the lies we were told then. I also remember the apathy of the press and the people until after the Tet offensive.

Supporting the administration in this particular instance was a very complex issue. This administration was not born in the natural order. It was born by Cesarean delivery.

I think that there were many honest people who were wary of speaking out against the Bush offensive because they weren't sure whether their disbelief was generated by the anger they felt about how he came into office or by a real gut feeling that this was wrong.

I believe that many of the Senators who voted for the powers that were given to the administration were conflicted by those same concerns and felt that they should give them the benefit of the doubt.

[wurzel]

12. NONE. They were just lazy and spineless.

Many of the "facts" revealed by this latest CIA report were available to Democratic members of Congress before we went to war. They were too lazy to read them. Then they were too spineless to oppose this administration's obvious lies and exaggerations.