Joe Wilson: "Obama's vote was typically passive."

[candice]

"A number of us, like then Illinois state senator Obama, opposed the second Gulf War. My own opposition from the beginning has been well documented. I fought the fight in the arena itself, Washington DC, against a ruthless administration and its supporters while the senator's opposition came from a far distance and carried no risk, given that he represented in Springfield, Illinois the district encompassing the University of Chicago. As an obscure but safe provincial political figure, he never was granted access to the distorted intelligence that was used to drive the Congress and the media. When I looked to the left or to the right for support, I never saw the state senator. In fact, I never heard of Barack Obama until he announced his intention to run for the Senate in the 2006 election.

After he came to Washington, Obama's views were thoroughly conventional and even timid. In 2004, he said about the 2002 congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force: "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know." On Iraq-related votes in the Senate, Obama's record identically matches Senator Clinton's--with the exception that Senator Clinton voted against the confirmation of General George Casey as Army chief of staff. Obama's vote was typically passive.

In the run up to the war and thereafter, I was in frequent discussions with senior Democrats in Washington, including Senator Clinton, and I was keenly aware of her demand for the full exercise of international diplomacy and allowing the weapons inspectors to complete their mission. Many of the most prominent early opponents of the war, including former General Wes Clark and former ambassador to the United National Richard Holbrooke support Senator Clinton for President, as do I. We do so because we know that she has the experience and the judgment that comes from having been in the arena for her entire adult life--and from close personal participation with her in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. And we have trust in her to end the war in Iraq in the most responsible way, consistent with our national security interests.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/the-real-hillary-i-know-_b_77878.html

[emilyg]

1. k/r

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. k&r

[TwilightGardener]

3. Joe Wilson: My fifteen minutes are fading, and I might have backed the wrong horse. Damn.

[Cooley Hurd]

7. Joe and Valerie Wilson has both been shredded by the RW media....

...and, despite my disagreement with whom he is backing for President, he still deserves the respect of all of us.:thumbsup:

[populistdriven]

30. CIA shill: Obama's not a tool like HRC

[Cooley Hurd]

32. Such a shill that she lost her fucking job???

:eyes:

[OzarkDem]

12. Joe Wilson is an expert; lets not choose candidates like fast food

Packaging and advertising of candidates is irrelevant, not experts on foreign policy who have real experience.

[ursi]

14. totally agree with that!

[VotesForWomen]

17. so your support of O amounts to the fact that you think he's going to win? quite an endorsement.

[Straight Shooter]

20. This article is from Dec. 2001.

Joe Wilson will have a lifetime of fame. He is a bona fide American hero. You can check the Plame threads by H20 Man.

[newmajority]

22. And who was it who proclaimed Joe Wilson an "American hero"?

Why it was Bill Clinton's BFF George Herbert Walker Poppy Bush of the CIA, of course.



What Chimp & Cheney did to the Wilsons was criminal, but that doesn't change the fact that they are CIA, and therefore represent interests which are often contrary to that of the American people. Remember that the Bush Crime Family were the original founders of the CIA, and they have been involved ever since.

[anamandujano]

25. He tried to stop the war before it started. He is central to the Bush

gang's treachery. He put his life on the line.

If you don't know that, you don't know much.

[Raster]

24. Joe Wilson deserves NONE of your snarky bullshit. So you don't agree with him on Obama...

fine! This is still a democracy and you have the right--as does Ambassador Wilson--to your opinion. But lay of the flippant, dismissive crap. Joe Wilson and his wife have had their butts on the line more times than most of us will ever know. If you have something constructive and relevant to say, than by all means, speak up. If not...

[roguevalley]

31. I wondered if he would be attacked and how far down the thread it

would come. He's like the parents who have lost a child in this war. He's suffered hugely and is entitled to any opinion he has because, unlike 99% of the rest of us, he actually lost something in this war.

[Cooley Hurd]

4. In all fairness to both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama...

...in the age of 24/7 cable media coverage, EITHER would've been filleted by FAUXCNNMANBC had they NOT voted a certain way - and, yes, it's a double standard that Republicans are NEVER held to.

I respect Ambassador Wlison, and respect his right to his opinion. I may not agree with it, but I still respect the hell outta the man!:thumbsup:

[HeraldSquare212]

5. Do we need to revisit that the quoted statement was made at the Dem convention

where he was being asked about Kerry and Edwards' vote on the IWR, and wanted to avoid embarrassing the Dem nominees? Didn't Bill already get slammed enough for this - does the Clinton campaign really have the gall to now have surrogates repeat the same base canard?

The Clinton's don't understand party loyalty, so I can see how it's a hard for them to understand what Obama was doing.

[BlackVelvet04]

13. Yeah, please tell us W.O.R.M. n/t

[HeraldSquare212]

18. Sorry, I figured most people here had been following the campaign so far.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/obama_and_iraq.html

-snip-

Clinton then expressed surprise that Obama has been allowed to get away with a statement in 2004, "at the Democratic Convention," saying that there was "not much difference" between him and George W. Bush on Iraq. He also quoted Obama as saying that he "did not know" how he would have voted on the now-contentious 2002 Senate resolution authorizing military action in Iraq, had he been in the Senate at the time.

The way Clinton said all this, it sounded as if these statements were part of Obama's big speech to the convention, which marked his introduction to big-time politics. In fact, they are somewhat misleading snippets from newspaper interviews that Obama gave before the convention.

As the keynote speaker, Obama was trying to be loyal to the Democratic nominees, John Kerry and John Edwards, both of whom had voted in favor of the war authorization resolution, along with Hillary Clinton. In an interview reported by the New York Times on July 26, on the first day of the convention, he reiterated his opposition to the war but declined to criticize Kerry and Edwards, saying he was "not privy to Senate intelligence reports."

-snip-

[BlackVelvet04]

21. uh huh, sure. n/t

[HeraldSquare212]

23. Well, you asked and I told you. nt

[blogslut]

6. These chestnuts are old

And they've apparently gone bad. Anybody have any fresh chestnuts?

[dailykoff]

8. CIA shill: Obama's not a tool like our girl.

Thanks for your concern Joe.

[blm]

9. Richard Clarke (antiterror expert), Gary Hart (HartRudman Reprt on Global Terror),

John Kerry (tracked terror networks and funds since 1985) and Gen Anthony Zinni (brilliant military mindset) all support Obama and are advising him.

I think THAT is better than Clintons' advisors - the top one Bill advised Tony Blair from 2001-2007 and how did that work out for Tony?

Hillary will be Tony Blair, no doubt about it.

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. i see he's been given a list of talking points.

[FrenchieCat]

11. Hillary's votes, on the other hand, were typically that of a war hawk!

Thanks Joe Wilson......

But you are incorrect to a great degree:

These two videos from 2002 compare and contrast the mental faculties and foreign policy capabilities of the two candidates:

Sen. Clinton:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkS9y5t0tR0

Sen. Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXzmXy226po

[VotesForWomen]

19. they're the same as obama's. i know it's a tough pill to swallow, with O being the messiah and all.

[tishaLA]

15. "his intention to run for the senate in 2006"?

that'd be 2004, Mr Ambassador. I was another of those people who was never granted access to the distorted intelligence, but I knew it was bullshit. Why didn't the junior Sen from NY? Why didn't she read the NIE and, instead, relied upon a briefing? And if you didn't see him when you looked left or right, it's because you were part of the beltway, while he was working at the state level. Hell, you can't even get the date of his announcement and election to the Senate correct.

And those people who live in his "provincial" district believed he did a good job representing them. Perhaps you don't like the University of Chicago, but he also represented some very poor constituents--he had an amazingly diverse population. Sorry if you think they are "provincial." But you are the one too provincial to recognize that out in the "flyover," in Springfield IL, Barack Obama was a brave voice against the war when the candidate you support couldn't be bothered to read the NIE.

[killbotfactory]

16. So Joe Wilson isn't above distorting an opponents record

Wow. Awesome. What a champ.

If Clinton was so intent on having a "full exercise of international diplomacy" before war, then she shouldn't have supported the fucking war after Bush cut short inspections and bypassed the UN, but she did, and continued to support it right up until this primary season started when it became obvious that continuing to support the Iraq war and winning the primary was impossible.

Here is the full quote from Obama which Wilson, and every other Clinton supporters it seems, misleadingly took out of context.

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.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711110004

[anamandujano]

29. Can anyone decipher this crap?

"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."

Does that mean he would have followed the national polls before casting his vote in the senate? That's the best I can make of it.

He really is the vague, interpret-me-as-you-will candidate.

[killbotfactory]

36. He means the debate over the Iraq War Resolution wasn't honest

People were lied to across the board, and the politicians opposed to the IWR were dismissed as little more than cowardly traitors by many in the media.

[dcindian]

26. So it breaks down to I'm smart and your dumb.

Pretty sad state of affairs if the Hillary camp just can't get past this attack dog crap. America is tired of this, if he supports Hillary he should be talking about Hillary.

Not trying to denigrate Obama voters.

Sad...Sad.. Sad

[bunnies]

27. When it comes to WAR...

Id rather have passive than aggressive.

[AtomicKitten]

28. Beware of the war-mongers for they shall destroy the planet.

To label the anti-dumb-war candidate as "passive" is truly a weak argument and an effort to try to mitigate Obama being right on the war from the get-go.

I understand the Clintons believe the "strong and wrong" argument is a winner, but they are dead wrong. Hundreds of thousands of dead wrong.

[Proud2BAmurkin]

33. Obama is painfully weak on national security. He cannot beat McCain.

[Cooley Hurd]

34. Conjecture...

:thumbsdown:

[hill08]

35. Obama supporters just don't want to face the hard facts.