Biden on eve of vote: "Your principle is going to kill a lot of Americans"

[NewYorkerfromMass]

"... Biden recalled, on September 30th Lugar, who was in touch with the White House, called him. “Joe, I fear in the next twenty-four, forty-eight hours, the President’s going to cut a deal with Gephardt,” he said.... "They’re working two sides here. They’re working us, keeping us occupied, but they’re working just as hard meeting with him. Whoever they reach an agreement with first, they’re going to go with.”

If Richard Gephardt, the House Democratic minority leader, came out for the Administration’s resolution, it would be politically almost impossible for any Republican to support the Biden-Lugar alternative. Biden had to gather the Democratic holdouts immediately and persuade them to stand behind his resolution so that he and Lugar could move it onto the Senate floor the next day.

That evening, Biden met with half a dozen leading Democrats who were opposed to any war resolution at all. “They said, ‘It’s not right, you’re not principled, asking us to do this,’” Biden recalled. “I said, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Please spare me the lecture. I thought our job was to do as much as we could to prevent this President from going off to war half-cocked. Does anybody in here believe that we’re going to get any resolution remotely approaching the constraints this resolution has?’” Biden warned his colleagues, “Guess what? Your principle is going to kill a lot of Americans.” But the antiwar Democrats were intractable. At the end of the meeting, Senator Paul Wellstone, of Minnesota, and Senator Barbara Boxer, of California, left the room arm in arm, chuckling...."

I just read this from a NewYorker article focused on the Democrats' recent history of problems in fashioning sensible foreign/military policy. I'm not going to directly link it but it's posted over in editorials right now.

My point here is to spotlight the immense struggle faced by the Senate Democrats such as Kerry to get even their own to see what the consequences of the vote would be, and their failure to acknowledge that Bush was getting a resolution passed no matter what. With Nader in the picture again, it is fair to say that if we are not careful, such intractable adherence to principle is going to kill a lot more Americans.

[poskonig]

1. Good article.

Thanks for sharing! It is amazing the Democrats came that close to changing how Iraq would have played out. Lugar had a signifcant number of republicans (25+) and all Biden needed was 40 Democrats to support the bill. But we only got 38.

Then Gephardt took the initiative and sold us out in the House, and the Republicans everywhere fell in line.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. And Gephardt paid the price, didn't he?

We didn't forget what he did.

[FloridaPat]

9. He still has a job and a pension. He hasn't paid for anything.

[The Backlash Cometh]

28. His political aspirations were stymied.

I know it's difficult for us regular folk who are just glad we can keep our jobs, but people in political office actually aspire to be more than what they are and that's the problem with our political system. They use their jobs as leverage and every decision they make is not for the betterment of the public, but for the betterment of their carreers. What they forget is that there is a canyon between the interest of big campaign contributors and public votes. Gephardt forgot this and paid the price. He's going no where, and neither is Joe Lieberman. They both forgot who they served.

[Bok_Tukalo]

2. "... evil will always triumph because good is dumb"

- Dark Helmet

[dsc]

3. But wait

those resolutions are exactly the same thing. I know this because when my candidate supported it I was told repeatedly it was the exact, precise same thing. Now it isn't? I am confused.

[RafterMan]

6. Hehe

Shhh. You're not supposed to remember that.

Anyway, I think part of the goal was to include the "Your principle is going to kill a lot of Americans" line for anti-ABBers.

[Eloriel]

27. It's exactly the same thing about half the time --

It's the same when that serves the purpose, and it's different if that's what the situation demands.

It's the Kerry way! The Real Deal!

[Leilani]

4. I saw Biden on PBS last nite

& he talked a little about the run up to war, & he said it was Gephardt's fault for working with Bush behind the Senate's back.

[RafterMan]

5. I've heard Biden tell a story similar to Kerry...

about Bush's broken promises.

He said he met with Bush personally, who made promises to him about persuing diplomacy and "levelling with the American people" about the justifications and costs of the war. I don't have a link, because I'm just recalling appearances he made on Charlie Rose, where he is a frequent guest.

You can say "naive enabler" if you want, but it was clear enough to me that he knew what Bush did was mad, and was just trying to keep a hand on the wheel.

Unlike John Edwards.

[lcordero]

7. Spare me the garbage

Biden and Lugar voted for H.J.Res.114 knowing that Bush is not to be trusted. The two were dead-set on waging war. Biden and Lugar can get lost.

[FloridaPat]

10. The Senate spent 6 months debating Gulf War 1. They should

have just pushed it aside until after the election. It killed them. They screwed up big time. I believe it cost them the Senate and a lot of respect from the American people. If I didn't hate republicans as much as I do, I wouldn't have bothered going out and voting in 2002.

Over the years I've asked this question a lot, and this is a case that I have to ask: who do the Democrats work for? Whose side are they on?

[scarletwoman]

26. "Who do the Democrats work for?"

Hint: It ain't US!

Anyway, what a bunch of bullshit. Biden is a perfectly happy neo-imperialist, he's just trying to cover his skanky sell-out ass. It was obvious to ANYONE with half a brain and an HONEST agenda that the chimperor was going to go to war no matter what.

You wanna stop something, you say NO!!!

sw

[DaisyUCSB]

11. I think that Biden would make a good vp for Edwards

he's charismatic as hell. And the ranking dem on the foriegn policy committee.

But Clark would make as good if not a better one for Edwards

[maggrwaggr]

14. I wouldn't buy a used waterbed from Biden

that guy is a slimeball. Have you taken a look at him? He looks like he ought to be selling tanning beds in Vegas or something.

[DaisyUCSB]

15. Well I don't discriminate against someones looks

I don't know if you're saying that because he has a tan and a colm-over that he's sleazy. But I consider what he say's, and usually whenever I hear him speak he's articulate and persuasive, and he lead the fight for the realist, unrushed, multilateral approach to Iraq

[arcos]

16. Mr RAVE Act?

No, thank you.

:puke: :puke: :puke: :puke: :puke:

[aquart]

12. It's OUR fault? Being against the war CAUSED IT??????

Mr. Biden being bathed in a holy light?

Please.

Was Bush stopped from doing one damn thing he intended? Would he have been?

Principle mattered very much at that moment. Show me where Biden had any.

[Scott Lee]

13. Such is the decrepit state of democratic statist thinking

I know, it's almost beyond belief. But hey, you have wonderful "democrats" like Tom Dash-hole praising the Chimp over his great little war.

Welcome to weird world.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

17. No. Senators Boxer, Wellstone, et al.... were too shortsighted

too shortsighted to see that Bush was going to get a war resolution passed no matter what, and that the best option available, the ONLY option available, was to slow him down. They were too intent on casting a 'NO' against ANY resolution for the simple reason of making a political statement against Bush. The sad truth is that if they had agreed to pass Biden Lugar they could have bought more time to insure inspections, REAL inspections and build a real coalition with real authority and moral standing.
The 'peace wing' of the party was simply too shortsighted to see this, and while they meant well, they effectively brought on armed conflict sooner than if Biden-Lugar had been passed.

[Mairead]

18. Sorry, that's rubbish.

The way you stop a war is to say NO! and if necessary force it to a party-line vote so that the warmongers have zero cover.

Biden is a DINO sellout and has been for years. I wouldn't believe him if he told me the time off his watch.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

19. Sorry but they never had the votes to stop it

only to slow it down. Having political 'cover' or not doesn't save lives either. Oh and what is Lugar?.. a RINO sell out?

[Carolina]

20. stop it, no

but it would have been politically and morally right, and Bush and the GOP would be squarely and solely to blame for the mess we're in now.

That would have been more than political cover.

[Carolina]

22. Also slowing it down would still have been good

since haste makes waste. And surely going hastily to war has made for disaster

[NewYorkerfromMass]

23. That's the point. exactly. eom

[RafterMan]

24. But

Biden's argument about "lives" is premised on the notion that B-L would have altered the rush to war. I thought it was mostly agreed during the Dean debate here that its value was primarily symbolic.

I think Biden honestly didn't want things to unfold as they did, but the idea that his ammendment would have stopped the train strikes me as wishful thinking.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

25. If the train had been slowed down, then a true international coalition

would indeed have saved American lives which is what Biden said. but who knows what would have transpired had the actual start of the war been delayed 3 to 6 months?

The actual point of my post was, that since Iraq is now water under the bridge, to tie this thinking into contmeplating possible consequences of 3rd party voting.

[hedgetrimmer]

21. bad-a-bing bad-a-boom!

No means no. hear hear! salutations and other fun stuff...

ABB (another bush bl*wj*b)