I'm going to beat this horse, er donkey,

[Carolina]

to death. The IWR votes mattered and NO ONE CAN CLAIM IGNORANCE. Our candidates can offer apologoies, excuses and other speechifying crap but it's just that CRAP. Read below and weep. This powerful, historical speech (excerpted) was given by Robert Byrd on 10/7/2002!!!! and if you read nothing else, scroll down to the last paragraph and read what Abe Lincoln wrote over 100 years ago the same ISSUE!

--------

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=113

... Thanks to Byrd's fierce denunciations of an unnecessary resolution to promote an unnecessary war, members of Congress who side with the administration will not be able to plead ignorance to the charge that they abandoned their Constitutionally-mandated responsibilities in order to position themselves for the fall election.

... In a remarkable speech delivered as the Senate opened its debate on Bush's request for broad authority to use military force against Iraq, Byrd chastised his fellow Democrats for engaging in equally contemptible acts:

"The newly bellicose mood that permeates this White House is unfortunate, all the moreso because it is clearly motivated by campaign politics. Republicans are already running attack ads against Democrats on Iraq. Democrats favor fast approval of a resolution so they can change the subject to domestic economic problems... Before risking the lives of American troops, all members of Congress --Democrats and Republicans alike -- must overcome the siren song of political polls and focus strictly on the merits, not the politics, of this most serious issue."

"We are rushing into war without fully discussing why, without thoroughly considering the consequences, or without making any attempt to explore what steps we might take to avert conflict. The resolution before us today is not only a product of haste; it is also a product of presidential hubris. This resolution is breathtaking in its scope. It redefines the nature of defense, and reinterprets the Constitution to suit the will of the Executive Branch. It would give the President blanket authority to launch a unilateral preemptive attack on a sovereign nation that is perceived to be a threat to the United States...

--- snip ---

"Representative Abraham Lincoln ... stated: ‘Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose ... you allow him to make war at pleasure... The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated ... by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.'"

[frogcycle]

1. k/r

[Monkeyman]

2. five K&R

[bonito]

3. 7

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. cut that last paragraph out and stick it on the White House gates

[MissWaverly]

5. we hold these truths to be self evident

let us remember this no one man should be able to bring us to war on a mere whim, we are a democracy made up of a government of the
people, for the people and by the people.