Republican Senator Gordon Smith criticizes Iraq War

[JI7]

did anyone see this ? saw it in LBN thread,, some are suggesting it's about 2008 when he is up for re-election which may be true.

WASHINGTON - Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith (, , ), a Republican who voted in favor of the Iraq war in 2002 and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Smith called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he never would have voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate.

A spokesman said Friday that Smith did not mean to call the war criminal in a legal sense.

Smith said he is "tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let‘s cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the war on terror more intelligently than we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way."

http://www.onelocalnews.com/whiterockreviewer/ViewArticle.aspx?id=33303&source=2

[sandnsea]

1. *May* be true?

lol, yeah, true. Gordo is toast. No way Oregon is going to forgive and forget all his Bush kissy-face. I don't know who we'll get to run against him, but we've got several possibilities who I think will beat him.

[ginnyinWI]

2. running scared

Doesn't want to be next on the chopping-block. In a way I feel sorry for the moderate Repubs, which he almost has to be to be elected in OR in the first place, right? They are all tainted by Bush and dragged down along with his failures. But they all could have and should have stood up and said something before now. Some did, like Rep. Walter Jones.

[BlueIris]

3. Sadly, Oregon Republicans aren't really all that moderate.

We have a healthy rightist community that prospers very well in reaction to the state's alleged progressivism and has for quite some time. Smith had to paint a moderate picture of himself because he went out for his senate seat during the Clinton '90s.