IWR should not be a defining issue

[Catholic Sensation]

Honestly, if John Kerry or John Edwards get the nomination, why on Earth would you not vote for them in November simply because of one issue? The conservatives are still going to vote for Bush and that son of a bitch has done more to alienate his base than Kerry and Edwards have combined.

It seems like the conservatives are smarter than some liberals, because they'll vote for their party's guy no matter what; while some liberals will refuse to vote for their party's guy simply because he supported something the liberal in question didn't.

Here's the logic that seems to be escaping these people: if you don't vote for the Democrat who happened to vote for the IWR (assuming he's the nominee), you're effectively voting for Bush, the man who wanted this war and continues to make things worse over there. In effect, you're supporting someone who IS the IWR.

Let's all stop being so immature about this, and work our collective asses off for whoever we nominate.

[Walt Starr]

1. Too bad, for many of us it is

and it ain't gonna get swept under a rug.

I'll reconsider my position as soon as I hear a contrite renouncing of the IWR.

[WoodrowFan]

2. Not able to think straight

Alas, for many one issue voters their passion exceeds their ability to think straight. It reminds me of the pro-life voters who will vote against their every interest just to vote for a repub who claims to be "pro life." Some people see black and white no matter how simplistic and unrealistic it is.

[Jacobin]

8. I'll admit to not "thinking straight" when I look at my two teenage sons

and know that they will soon be draft age and that a BushWar or a KerryWar for oil could easily kill them.

The draft is coming. Its in the budget. I have no other issue, because without my sons, I don't care what happens. Will Kerry send in more troops, as in Lyndon Johnson? Anyone without rose colored glasses on knows this Iraq thing is going to get worse by multiples factors before we get booted out. Kerry went through the Vietnam war and STILL voted for this idiocy. And yes, I read all his parsing of phrases and I don't buy it.

I don't trust Kerry. He voted the wrong way on IWR. He could have voted against it and been with MANY other honorable Dems in Congress.

So, assuming Kerry gets the nomination, we will have a choice of BushTheKnownWarmonger and KerryTheWarmongerSupporter. Yippee.

[Hippo_Tron]

14. Kerry made a huge error in judgement...

But he is in no way a warmonger supporter. The only "pro-war" candidate is Joe Lieberman, the rest of the dems who voted for the resolution did so because the president claimed he needed to threaten force to get Iraq to disarm peacefully and that he would use every means possible to do so peacefully.

[HFishbine]

18. Not True

Edwards says he would have gone anyway.

[Jacobin]

24. This country can't afford that kind of "error in judgment"

And imho it was a political vote that has cost hundreds of U.S. lives, thousands of ghastly injuries, and for those who care, tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths......SO FAR.

[George_Bonanza]

21. Exactly

Pro-lifers elect Republican warhawks to save "human life" while they are inadvertently pushing America's soldiers into battle and death.

[dreissig]

23. Oh, a Sophisticate

We have different values. I say that invading a sovereign country on some invented pretext is uncivilized. Additionally I'm not as willing to forgive and forget as you are when politicians act like thugs.

Why isn't it enough that I'll never vote Republican? I'll vote Democrat when they don't invade other countries. This is minimal.

[Jacobin]

25. Well said

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dreissig]

4. Humphrey 1968

We heard in 1968 that we should vote for Humphrey anyhow, despite his vocal support for the Vietnam War. He changed his tune well into the campaign and might have narrowly defeated Nixon if he'd done that sooner. In terms of progressive values, the Nixon years were expensive! Chief Justice Rehnquist is one of Nixon's lasting gifts.

However, I would still refuse to vote for Humphrey, even knowing about Rehnquist and about the 26,000 lives that the Nixon presidency cost this country. The issue isn't about individual candidates, it's about the Democrats' nominating process. In 1968, Democrats guessed wrong about the willingness of the antiwar Left to forgive and forget. Well, we didn't forgive and forget.

It's really callous to describe Kerry's vote in the IWR as a "mistake" as though he gave the wrong answer to an ambiguously-worded multiple choice question. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators were in the streets trying to stop the war, and asshole Kerry voted for it. It was a huge disappointment for us, one that he's never satisfactorily explained.

How many people have lost their lives in the invasion of Iraq? Is it only 5,000? Between 5,000 and 10,000? You'd like to let Kerry off the hook because he says Oops. Humphrey said that back in 1968 but it didn't matter because it was too late. If Democrats want to avoid repeating the terrible year of 1968, the answer is clear: Don't nominate another Humphrey.

[goodhue]

20. 1968 is a very interesting parallel

But remember McCarthy was campaigning for WITHDRAWAL from Vietnam. Only Kucinich and Sharpton are advocating withdrawal at this point but hopefully some others will come to there senses before July. Rest assured some folks will be challenging the occupaton in Boston! The party should not force them to take it to the streets as in 1968.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. I don't see it as an issue at all. Most voters support the crusade, and

so do the candidates.

Each candidate believes that he is the best one to run it, though, and each candidate will now have the task of convincing the voters that he will do a better job of it than bush.

[ShimokitaJer]

13. crusade?

I hope you're being sarcastic.

[DuctapeFatwa]

31. Not at all. The majority of voters supports it. That refers to the top 25

income tier, with a few exceptions.

And while bush regime loyalists may like the idea of calling it anything other than a crusade, it is naive to suppose that the bulk of earth residents are as easily fooled as They Who Bear the Burden would like.

It is a Crusade, not only against Islam, but against the poor, against women, against indigenous people, against pretty much everybody but white protestant heterosexual males.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Over 20 thousand reasons that it is .

The approximate number of Iraqi dead that Kerry OK'd so that he could advance his political career.

Perhaps you can overlook that. Some us can't and won't. Should Kerry, Edwards or Lieberman get the nomination there is, fortunately, an alternative. One that I'll be taking.

[dreissig]

28. Alternatives

The main alternative to voting for Kerry is not voting for Kerry. That's how I handled the Humphrey vote in 1968. What an odious man he turned out to be. They called him the "Happy Warrior" and I remember hearing him describe the Vietnam War as glorious.

The vote I withhold from Kerry isn't a vote for Bush. That's just a plain fact. I've gone into the voting booth and left without voting for every office. If Kerry is the nominee, I'll vote for every Democrat but the guy at the top of the ticket.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. We're right on track.

I voted Peace & Freedom in '68. I'll probably be voting Green this time if Edwards or Kerry get it. I've never regretted my vote against Nixon & Humphrey and I don't expect that I'll ever regret a vote against Kerry/Bush or Edwards/Bush.

Clark I don't know about yet. I have very uneasy feelings about him and his support of the SOA and his lobbying for the "Defense" industry. Not to mention my general distrust of the military.

[MadHound]

7. Sorry, but this BS doesn't fly

Don't you get it? Don't you understand? Twenty thousand people, most of them innocent civilians have died. Along with that, the US pissed off a bunch of people who could come and mess with us(911 redux). And you think that we should give these Bush enablers a pass? Get outta here!

I'm sorry, but anybody who was gullible enough to be led by the nose by the Bush gang does not deserve to hold any position of power. Their vote just shows that they're either gullible, stupid or evil. Not good qualities to have in any office holder, much less the President. And it isn't like they didn't have any information. The CIA was screaming at them, the IAEA, Hans Blix, the UN, protestors, some of the liberal media, all of these folks were telling these people that Bush was feeding them a line of BS. Yet they went for it hook, line and sinker anyway. Sorry but they will not get a pass from me.

[ShimokitaJer]

9. Defining issue for the GE? No. For the primaries? Absolutely.

Yes, voting for Bush over a Democratic candidate because of their position on IWR would be ridiculous. That's what happens to an argument when you reduce it to its most simple form, as you are trying to do here.

But that isn't really the decision, now, is it? The question is whether we hold those who supported the IWR accountable for their actions in choosing a candidate to go up against Bush. Given the choice, I'd rather give my vote to someone who opposed this war from the start. Depending on who gets the nomination, I may not have that luxury in the GE, but I'm sure as hell going to pay attention to it now.

[dreissig]

29. Forfeiting Eligibility

I have fairly minimal eligibility standards for candidates. These criteria are not at all burdensome, in my opinion. The rules are that the candidate must not be

• a Republican, or
• a thug

Gosh, this doesn't sound complicated but along comes John Kerry who voted for the invasion of Iraq. He waffles about it, but basically he's satisfied with the vote and would do it again. John Kerry has failed to meet my minimal eligibilty criteria. He acts like my vote doesn't matter to him, and it probably doesn't.

[mitchum]

10. But since Joe Lieberman doesn't hold a copyright on sanctimony...

it will be (and a pox on them)

[quaker bill]

11. Well you see there is this little matter

related to the 10's of thousands of dead people that causes me a concern.

This is not "one issue" like say a gun control preference or a proposed tax cut. This is a war and peace, life and death, I have kids, they could be drafted, kind of thing.

[sangha]

12. And then there's a little matter of

the children and adults who die from a lack of medical care. They end up just as dead as those poor innocent Iraqis.

[quaker bill]

30. Yes,

It is a shame that we have wasted all this money on an ill-begotten war when we could have spent it on medical care.

It is more a shame that we had such a failure in diplomacy and intelligence that we could not obtain the evidence that was obviously there that WMD programs had ceased and that the stockpiles had been destroyed.

We could then have lifted the sanctions and engaged NGO's and international relief organizations toward in helping the Iraqi people.

Instead, we opted for the test match with our very own little tyrant.

[oldcoot]

15. This is a major issue

You must remember that the Iraqi War is a very important and emotional issue for those who opposed the war so it really is not fair to accuse them of immaturity. Opponents of the war took a very unpopular stand. Antiwar activists were ridiculed for protesting the war and they were accused of being unpatriotic. How could they not support the troops? Didn't they know that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda? Didn't they know that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the United States? They were even accused of loving Saddam Hussein. I even remember reading letters to the editor from pro-war conservatives demanding to know "when the antiwar protesters were going to apologize for being wrong?" These letters appeared shortly after the invasion, when the invasion seemed to being going well. I do not see these letters in my paper anymore. I wonder why.

It appears that the antiwar crowd was right. Bush exaggerated the threat that Iraq posed to the United States and we have yet to find weapons of mass destruction. There in no link between Hussein and Al Qaeda. Despite Bush's rhetoric about liberating the Iraqi people, the Iraqis do not appear grateful to the United States and who can blame them? Many Iraqis lost family members during the invasion and now many Iraqis are unemployed. Even after Bush declared an end to major hostilities, American troops find themselves fighting a guerrilla war.

Although I consider the war a disaster, I will vote for whoever gets the Democratic nomination because I agree that it is important to replace Bush. I am afraid that if Bush gets another term, that he will try to invade Syria or Iran. I am also afraid that he will continue his assault on the U.S. Constitution and will continue to appoint conservative judges. Since judges can serve for life, I will convince myself that Bush deceived Democrats into supporting this war with forged documents and lies. I will tell myself that Edwards and Kerry would never have voted for the war if Bush had told the truth. However, I would rather put an antiwar Democrat in the White House.

[mmonk]

16. But not swept under the table and ignored.

[democracyindanger]

17. MWO gets it right

http://www.mediawhoresonline.net/main.htm#Welcome

Iowa Results Confuse Post-Caucus Commentators

The punditocracy was out in full force Monday night expressing collective, profound bewilderment over why so many of the three-fourths of Democrats who oppose Bush's War would vote for Senator John Kerry over Dr. Howard Dean. But their expressions of shock begged the question of whether Dr. Dean and Sen. Kerry represent to informed Democrats what the uninformed pundits think they represent in terms of the Iraq invasion.

<...>

The pundits fail to grasp that, despite the efforts to confuse the two, support for the Bush War is not synonymous with support for the Iraq War Resolution, but with support for Bush's decision to use force prematurely and irresponsibly. That is, before the building of a legitimate international coalition and/or before U.N. inspectors were able to finish the job of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that no weapons of mass destruction, therefore no imminent threat, existed.

"The War" is important issue, and no one should conclude from Monday's Iowa caucus results that Democrats have decided they must support Bush's War in order to win in November. Senator Joe Lieberman has supported Bush's War, and it is one major reason he has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination.

<...>

[goodhue]

19. Yes

The occupation of Iraq should be the defining issue!

Kucinich: Dems Risk Forfeiting Election Over Iraq Occupation

"The Democrats forfeited a chance to regain the House in 2002 because party leaders supported this war," said Kucinich. "We will forfeit the White House this year if we take the same path. Voters will not turn out for a Democrat unless the Democrats offer an alternative to the Republican agenda. All of the other candidates in the Iowa Caucuses are forfeiting to Bush the debate on what should be the central issue of this campaign. Bush wants to leave our troops in Iraq for years, and so do they.

"US military casualties in Iraq have now exceeded 500, and the media has begun comparing the figure to the number of US dead in Vietnam in 1965 prior to the significant expansion of US operations there. We are out $155 billion already with hundreds of billions at stake if we stay in.

"Other Democrats join the Bush Administration in explaining that 'We can't cut and run.' I say we can't continue the damage we are causing and cannot begin repairing it until we withdraw our occupying army. We must pay for what we destroyed. We must pay reparations to the families of innocent civilians we killed and injured. But we must work through the United Nations. We must allow the United Nations to facilitate the creation of a democratic government that will be acceptable to the Iraqi people. No government created by the United States will be. It is better that we recognize this now than after the next 500 deaths."

[George_Bonanza]

22. Kerry absolutely does not support the war as is

He may have expressed some need for it way back in October of 2002, but he has never faltered in criticizing Bush about the way he has handled it. Even if you accuse Kerry of balking in IWR, you cannot argue logically that he will happily continue Bush's policies in Iraq.

[RetroLounge]

26. No thank you...

I've got better things to do than support business-as-usual politicians.

[jonnyblitz]

27. I will vote for a pro war DEM in the GE if I have to this time.

But I won't feel great about it.

[Iverson]

33. Preventive invasion is no big deal?

Here's the logic that's escaping some people: if you rationalize support for poisonous policies, you'll get poisonous policies.

Also, calling oppositon to killing others who haven't attacked us "immature" doesn't make it immature. To some, it is a basic article of civilization not to invade and kill others for political convenience.

Sorry if that offends anyone's sense of partisanship.