OBAMA DIDN'T VOTE AGAINST THE IWR

[jlake]

Of course he wasn't in the senate, but that doesn't stop many from claiming he didn't vote for it.
I am sorry, but he has admitted that he doesn't know how he would have voted - and based on his funding of the war and lack of political courage since he HAS been in the senate I conclude he would have either voted for it or skipped the vote and issued a statement that it wasn't close, so he didn't need to be there... blah blah blah.

[DrDan]

1. Obama seems to have a history of skipping votes

that bothers me . . . he sure avoids taking a stance

[jlake]

2. Skipping votes, taking multiple positions - it is a pattern.

It's what his candidacy is. A blank slate that everyone can project their own "Hopes" and vision of "Change" onto.

[movonne]

3. No he did not vote against the IWR and that was wrong, but he

also voted against the war before it became fashionable to do so..

[jlake]

4. I will need a link to where Obama has voted against the war 1 time.

[mtnsnake]

7. He voted against the war? When?

All he votes is YES to continue to fund and enable the war.

[mtnsnake]

22. Where did movonne disappear to?

According to you:

he also voted against the war before it became fashionable to do so

I'll be interested to see what you can come up with to prove it, movonne.

[movonne]

37. I came back....I forget to go back in..did I make a mistake??

[LostinVA]

51. Yeah -- when you said Obama voted against the war

[mtnsnake]

5. Yup, & that's why he shouldn't make such an issue of it unless he voted "NO", which he didn't

Anyone who didn't vote can easily make claims one way or the other, most often depending on which way the political winds are blowing.

[jlake]

8. Yes, and the Obama rhetoric has also convinced many less-informed

that he *was* in the Senate and *voted against the IWR*

[LSparkle]

6. This is why we seldomly elect Senators or Congressmen

If they've been in either chamber long enough, they've lived to regret plenty of votes. That's Obama's advantage in this cycle: he hasn't had to cast a lot of votes (yet).

[jlake]

9. Yes, but he can't claim good votes he never made.

[LSparkle]

20. He's not claiming to have cast a VOTE at all on the Iraq War

He only says he's "been against it from the start" which is the truth. He's parsing his words like ... many people do.

"It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is ... "

[BlackVelvet04]

13. And skipped a bunch of those he should have made. n/t

[Yossariant]

10. He wasn't there. Not present. Not absent. Not there.

He can't be responsible for votes he didn't cast, while he's busy taking credit for votes he didn't cast.

:rofl:

[mtnsnake]

12. Yet we already have someone in this thread claiming he voted against the war. lol

[AtomicKitten]

11. Uncle Teddy begs to differ with you and your nonstop attempts to attack Obama's strength.

Delivered on 26 October 2002 at an anti-war rally in Chicago by Barack Obama, Illinois Senator.

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.

The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

[jlake]

14. Unfortunately, that is *NOT* The only position Obama took. & He admitted

he didn't know how he would have voted if he had been in the senate.
HINT: See Kyle-Lieberman

[AtomicKitten]

16. Another misrepresentation.

What many Clinton advocates continue to say:

In July of 2004, Barack Obama said , that he was "not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don’t know,” in terms of how you would have voted on the war.

And why that is disingenuous and misleading:

Russert misleadingly cropped Obama comment to claim he wasn't "firmly wedded against the war"

Summary: Interviewing Barack Obama on Meet the Press, Tim Russert read a quote he attributed to Obama to suggest that he has "not been a leader against the war":

"In July of 2004, Barack Obama: 'I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. ... What would I have done? I don't know,' in terms of how you would have voted on the war."

Russert did not quote the very next sentence of Obama's statement, which was,

>> "What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made" for authorizing the war. <<

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711110004

[jlake]

19. So he trusts his gut and makes decisions without evidence?

Scary - sounds like the person who IS responsible for the war, GWB.

[AtomicKitten]

21. By your logic, Hillary not reading the NIE before voting YES on the IWR is okay?

Riight!!

Like Obama says, he was right and will be right on day #1.

[jlake]

24. No, that is *not* what I am saying.

And Obama's judgment is *Very* Questionable.
See: NCLB, Cheney's Energy Policy, McClurkin, Kyle-Lieberman....

[stillcool]

35. Hint: Dead horse, stop beating...

ooops! forgot to add link: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/20/14129/0524
Sorry there's so much to read...

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

BLITZER: "Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?"

OBAMA: "You know, I didn't have the information that was available to senators."

WHAT OBAMA SAID

BLITZER: Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?

OBAMA: You know, I didn't have the information that was available to senators. I know that, as somebody who was thinking about a U.S. Senate race, I think it was a mistake, and I think I would have voted no.

BLITZER: You would have voted no at the time?

OBAMA: That's correct.

BLITZER: Kerry, of course, and Edwards both voted yes.

OBAMA: But keep in mind, I think this is a tough question and a tough call.
What I do think is that if you're going to make these tough calls, you have to do so in a transparent way, in an honest way, talk to the American people, trust their judgment.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

"I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Mr. Obama said. "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made."

WHAT OBAMA SAID

"He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between SaddamHussein and Al Qaeda.

"In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

"'But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.'

"But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. 'What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,' he said." 7/26/2004]

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

Asked by NPR about John Kerry and John Edwards voting for the war, Obama said: "I think that there is room for disagreement in that initial decision."

WHAT OBAMA SAID

BLOCK: I've read about a speech you gave in the fall of 2002. It had to dowith the looming war in Iraq.

Sen. OBAMA: Right.

BLOCK: It made quite a splash. Can you tell me about that?

Sen. OBAMA: I delivered a speech to a couple of thousand people at a anti-war rally in Chicago. And I said, `It's not that I'm opposed to all wars. It's just that I think this is not the right war to fight.' I don't consider that to have been an easy decision, and certainly, I wasn't in the
position to actually cast a vote on it. But what I do think is that we need a foreign policy that is less ideologically driven and pays more attention to facts on the ground.

BLOCK: This ticket, obviously, John Kerry and John Edwards, both senatorsvoted for the war.

Sen. OBAMA: Yeah. Well--and I think that there is room for disagreement in that initial decision. Where I think we have to be unified is to recognize that we've got an enormous task ahead in actually making Iraq work. And that is going to take the kind of international cooperation that I think the Bush
administration has shown difficulty pulling off, and I think that the Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to be better prepared to do.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

In "Audacity," Obama allowed that he was: "sympathetic to the pressures Democrats were under" (p. 293), adding: "I didn't consider the case againstwar to be cut-and- dried." (p. 294)

WHAT OBAMA SAID

"And on October 11, 2002, twenty-eight of the Senate's fifty Democrats joined all but one Republican in handing to Bush the power he wanted.

I was disappointed in that vote, although sympathetic to the pressuresDemocrats were under. I had felt some of those same pressures myself. By the fall of 2002, I had already decided to run for the U.S. Senate and knew that possible war with Iraq would loom large in any campaign. When a group of Chicago activists asked if I would speak at a large antiwar rally planned for October, a number of my friends warned me against taking so public a position on such a volatile issue. Not only was the idea of an invasion increasingly popular, but on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and-dried. Like most analysts, I assumed that Saddam had
chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear arms. I believed that he had repeatedly flouted UN resolutions and weapons inspectors and that such behavior had to have consequences. That Saddam butchered his own people was
undisputed; I had no doubt that the world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

What I sensed, though, was that the threat Saddam posed was not imminent, the Administration's rationales for war were flimsy and ideologically driven, and the war in Afghanistan was far from complete. And I was certain that by choosing precipitous, unilateral military action over the hard slog of diplomacy, coercive inspections, and smart sanctions, America was missing
an opportunity to build a broad base of support for its policies.

In addition, the Obama campaign has posted the jeff Berkowitz interview where he clearly states he would have voted no on the AWR.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/i raq/

[Fresh_Start]

15. Without looking at the evidence he knew it was wrong

aren't we tired of Presidents who make decisions based on their instincts without reviewing the facts?

[AtomicKitten]

17. You mean like Hillary not reading the NIE before voting YEs on the IWR?

[Fresh_Start]

28. Hillary read the 5-page executive summary

which was released to Congress.

It paints a rather bleak picture and didn't have all 'maybes' of the 92-page version
However the 92-page version didn't conclude differently.

Here's the unclassified NIE
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html

Where should she have seen it as wrong

[davsand]

18. The entire readership of DU didn't "see" any evidence either.

How DARE he be like the readership of DU!!! How DARE he not vote no when he wasn't holding the office! The shame of it all--the SHAME!!!!

I only wish he'd showed up to vote for it without knowing what he was voting for--that would have made it alright.

:sarcasm:



Laura

[ErnestoG]

23. More crapola.

How many times you gonna try that one?

[jlake]

25. Thanks for moving your inane defense over here....

[johnnydrama]

26. Obama

Obama has only been in the senate a few years, and was much much less experienced 6 years ago.

Yet somehow he was 100% right about the war.

How can Hillary expect anybody to not laugh at her ready on day one rhetoric, when based on the most important vote of her life, Obama was ready 7 years before day one.

[jlake]

27. At most, he can be 50% right about the war since he took both positions.

[Qutzupalotl]

47. No, he didn't.

He was against it and has remained so.

Look at the full statements that many Clinton supporters like to take out of context. They like to leave out the part where he says, "the case was not made."

[Blarch]

29. Obama spoke up against the war...

when he didn't have to. He could have just said NOTHING ...and going against the war wasn't very popular when he spoke out.

As far as how he would have voted ...here he is saying he would vote no >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhpKmQCCwB8

[jlake]

30. Yes, this post addresses people claiming he VOTED AGAINST THE IWR

There has been a rash of Misinfo posted on here regarding that.

[VotesForWomen]

33. clinton spoke against reckless, pre-emptive action too. so what?

[Orangepeel]

31. blah, blah, blah, yourself

I didn't vote against the war, but I sure as hell was against it. And, just because I didn't call Kerry an asshole for voting for it while he was running for president because I wanted him to win and I knew that he was the best chance at the time to get us out, doesn't mean I wasn't against it.

Obama spoke against the war publicly when it was politically dangerous to do so. He deserves props for that. He also didn't sell out Kerry when the party needed him not to. He deserves props for that, too.

Pretending he wasn't against the war? Now, that's the fairy tale.

[jlake]

34. Why don't you poke around and see what inspired this post.

There is a campaign by Obamabots to say that Obama VOTED AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR.
Which is simply not true.

[VotesForWomen]

32. correct; it's just more projection by the obama groupies. nt

[stillcool]

36. maybe this will help you

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/3/20/14129/0524
WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

BLITZER: "Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?"

OBAMA: "You know, I didn't have the information that was available to senators."

WHAT OBAMA SAID

BLITZER: Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?

OBAMA: You know, I didn't have the information that was available to senators. I know that, as somebody who was thinking about a U.S. Senate race, I think it was a mistake, and I think I would have voted no.

BLITZER: You would have voted no at the time?

OBAMA: That's correct.

BLITZER: Kerry, of course, and Edwards both voted yes.

OBAMA: But keep in mind, I think this is a tough question and a tough call.
What I do think is that if you're going to make these tough calls, you have to do so in a transparent way, in an honest way, talk to the American people, trust their judgment.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

"I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Mr. Obama said. "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made."

WHAT OBAMA SAID

"He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between SaddamHussein and Al Qaeda.

"In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

"'But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.'

"But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. 'What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,' he said." 7/26/2004]

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

Asked by NPR about John Kerry and John Edwards voting for the war, Obama said: "I think that there is room for disagreement in that initial decision."

WHAT OBAMA SAID

BLOCK: I've read about a speech you gave in the fall of 2002. It had to dowith the looming war in Iraq.

Sen. OBAMA: Right.

BLOCK: It made quite a splash. Can you tell me about that?

Sen. OBAMA: I delivered a speech to a couple of thousand people at a anti-war rally in Chicago. And I said, `It's not that I'm opposed to all wars. It's just that I think this is not the right war to fight.' I don't consider that to have been an easy decision, and certainly, I wasn't in the
position to actually cast a vote on it. But what I do think is that we need a foreign policy that is less ideologically driven and pays more attention to facts on the ground.

BLOCK: This ticket, obviously, John Kerry and John Edwards, both senatorsvoted for the war.

Sen. OBAMA: Yeah. Well--and I think that there is room for disagreement in that initial decision. Where I think we have to be unified is to recognize that we've got an enormous task ahead in actually making Iraq work. And that is going to take the kind of international cooperation that I think the Bush
administration has shown difficulty pulling off, and I think that the Kerry-Edwards campaign is going to be better prepared to do.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HEAR

In "Audacity," Obama allowed that he was: "sympathetic to the pressures Democrats were under" (p. 293), adding: "I didn't consider the case againstwar to be cut-and- dried." (p. 294)

WHAT OBAMA SAID

"And on October 11, 2002, twenty-eight of the Senate's fifty Democrats joined all but one Republican in handing to Bush the power he wanted.

I was disappointed in that vote, although sympathetic to the pressuresDemocrats were under. I had felt some of those same pressures myself. By the fall of 2002, I had already decided to run for the U.S. Senate and knew that possible war with Iraq would loom large in any campaign. When a group of Chicago activists asked if I would speak at a large antiwar rally planned for October, a number of my friends warned me against taking so public a position on such a volatile issue. Not only was the idea of an invasion increasingly popular, but on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and-dried. Like most analysts, I assumed that Saddam had
chemical and biological weapons and coveted nuclear arms. I believed that he had repeatedly flouted UN resolutions and weapons inspectors and that such behavior had to have consequences. That Saddam butchered his own people was
undisputed; I had no doubt that the world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

What I sensed, though, was that the threat Saddam posed was not imminent, the Administration's rationales for war were flimsy and ideologically driven, and the war in Afghanistan was far from complete. And I was certain that by choosing precipitous, unilateral military action over the hard slog of diplomacy, coercive inspections, and smart sanctions, America was missing
an opportunity to build a broad base of support for its policies.

In addition, the Obama campaign has posted the jeff Berkowitz interview where he clearly states he would have voted no on the AWR.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/i raq/

[hiaasenrocks]

38. LOL. Nice photoshopped picture of Clinton.

[jlake]

39. Thanks for a substantial post..... always with the issues you!

[hiaasenrocks]

41. There was no substance to address.

Perhaps others are impressed with the spin put out by The Clintons' campaign.

I just think the photoshopped picture is funny.

[bunnies]

40. Thank you Captain Obvious! nt

[jlake]

42. Well, many seem to think he voted against the IWR

:shrug:

[hiaasenrocks]

43. Link us to a post on DU where someone says Obama voted against the IWR.

Thanks in advance! :hi:

[jlake]

44. Start with post 3 in this thread.

[hiaasenrocks]

45. OK.

You said: "Many seem to think he voted against the IWR."

Post 3 says: "No he did not vote against the IWR"

While it appears that the poster is mistaken about Obama's time in the Senate, they do NOT think, as you stated, that Obama voted against the IWR.

Got any others?

[MadHound]

46. Obama's is a sin of omission, Hillary's is a sin of commission

It really doesn't matter what Obama may or may not have done. We plainly know what Hillary did. She enabled Bush and his war, she continued to support that war via funding, and she has indicated that she is open to the idea of going after Iran. There is no doubt about these actions on the part of Hillary.

Myself and many others, both on this board and in the real world vowed that we would reject those who enabled Bush's war, well it is time for Hillary paid that piper. She needs to learn the lesson that you can't play politics with innocent lives and be rewarded for her actions. So while this isn't an endorsement of Obama, for we all know his record on funding the war, it is a rejection of Hillary and all she has done.

Chalk it up to accountability, or simply optioning for the lesser of two evils.

[MaineDem]

57. Omission?? He wasn't eligible to vote!

What sin did he commit?

[smoogatz]

48. "...but that doesn't stop many from claiming he didn't vote for it."

He didn't. Hillary, on the other hand, did. If we can take her at her word, she got snookered by Bush in the process. Ponder that one for a moment: Hillary got snookered by Bush, of all people. Not exactly the kind of information that inspires confidence. In contrast, Obama's opposition to the war was based on an almost prescient understanding of the forces and personalities behind the push to invade. In his words:

"What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

"What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

"That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

"He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

Read the whole thing. It's pretty damned smart.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech

[jlake]

52. The reason "he didn't vote for it" was because he WAS NOT in the senate - he would

have if he had been.

[smoogatz]

53. Projecting, much?

Obama publicly, repeatedly expressed his opposition to the war. If you had read the quote in my previous post, you'd know he was on to Bushco's whole bullshit propaganda push. Hillary, on the other hand, either made a thoroughly craven political vote (she knew it was bullshit but was afraid of looking weak), or she fell for the bullshit hook, line and sinker. Either way, she was wrong—and wrong again on Lieberman-Kyl. I'd prefer to run a candidate whose instincts were exactly right on this crucial issue.

On edit: from Linc Chafee's book:

"The top Democrats were at their weakest when trying to show how tough they were," writes Chafee. "They were afraid that Republicans would label them soft in the post-September 11 world, and when they acted in political self-interest, they helped the president send thousands of Americans and uncounted innocent Iraqis to their doom.

"Instead of talking tough or meekly raising one's hand to support the tough talk, it is far more muscular, I think, to find out what is really happening in the world and have a debate about what we really need to accomplish," writes Chafee. "That is the hard work of governing, but it was swept aside once the fear, the war rhetoric and the political conniving took over."

Chafee writes of his surprise at "how quickly key Democrats crumbled." Democratic senators, Chafee writes, "went down to the meetings at the White House and the Pentagon and came back to the chamber ready to salute. With wrinkled brows they gravely intoned that Saddam Hussein must be stopped. Stopped from what? They had no conviction or evidence of their own. They were just parroting the administration's nonsense. They knew it could go terribly wrong; they also knew it could go terribly right. Which did they fear more?"

Sound familiar?

[pampango]

56. I love the "Bush lied to Kerry, Clinton, Edwards , Dodd, and Biden".

How can they be held responsible for believing the President? But Kennedy, Wellstone, Boxer, Feingold and many others saw through the "lies".

Every one of our senators at the time who has since run for president, voted for the IWR. Of those who voted against it, none have since run for president.

Those who were contemplating a presidential bid wanted to CYA against the "Liberals are weak on defense" charge that the Republicans were, and still are, throwing around. It seems more than coincidental to me that all those who were "smart" enough to see through Bush's propaganda, were precisely those who weren't looking down the road at how it would look in a presidential race. All those who were looking at the presidency were conveniently "fooled" by Bush.

[AX10]

49. jlake, we all know how he would have voted.

"Present"!

[Maven]

50. I agree. Obama's record on national defense votes show he was no maverick

He would have followed the pack and voted with people like Kerry.

[Thrill]

54. He knew it was wrong. Too bad Hillary didn't

Her fault not his

[smoogatz]

55. She did, and voted for it anyway.

Even worse.

[Evergreen Emerald]

58. And : OBAMA SAID HE AGREES WITH BUSH ON THE WAR

And: OBAMA SAID HE DOES NOT KNOW HOW HE WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR IWR.


But, ignore those actions--dang he sure has perrty words.