We, as a party, need to admit we don’t always have the facts and support nonetheless. Amazing what being in the majority in at least one house will do. This is worse than being in the minority. We are completely shut out, yet I see signs of life. Let’s encourage where we can.

A full view of all the comments and rationale at the time are important. Some had no objection to war, or didn’t state it as so. Others were not for war, at all, unless a real threat from WMDs.

Remember at election time, after all those orange and yellow alerts, more than 50% liked the war and Bush. Getting the power back had to be about finesse, despite that not at any time did Kerry want this war, and stated so.

All agreed, around the world, they’d find something, and how would that play? The IWR sold as a precautionary tool against terrorism, and as Bush himself said before the vote in Cleveland, this is not the vote for war. Then they’d find something.

Each time you blame the Dems more than Bush for rushing to war, for dishonesty, you let Bush off the hook.

The NIE was a distraction. Nothing in it could have changed the facts that

1. as George Tenet himself testified in October 2002, even if Hussein possessed chemical or biologial munitions (no one was claiming he possessed a nuclear weapon), the only way he would have actually used them against us would have been if we attacked him first. Hussein was a contained, deterred, secular tyrant;

2. the AUMF itself was unconstitutional, as fully and brilliantly explicated by Robert Byrd;

3. the action “authorized” by the AUMF included unilateral preemptive war in the absence of an imminent threat, an abrogation of internatinal law and so, by extension, the supremacy clause of the constitution;

4. even if items 1-3 were not true, attacking Iraq would do nothing to make us safer from terrorists but would, rather, inflame worldwide animosity toward us and therefore amplify terrorist recruitment, as was being pointed out by such wild-eyed leftists as Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

MOREOVER, let us not forget that Democratic pandering to the Bush administration’s war-mongering did not end with the October 2002 AUMF but continued through the long months when it grew sickeningly obvious that Bush was not going to take “yes” for an answer, despite the fact that Iraq “on the whole co-operated rather well” with Unmovic and the IAEA.

So, sure, it’s better than nothing when a Democrat gets around to saying, “If I knew then what I know now…,” but that’s still disingenuous. Full honesty would instead require, “If I’d acted honorably based on what was plain as day at the time….”

With all the unclear and hysterical rhetoric, assertions from Colin Powell, and others, important that we get in the inspectors, something Bush would not go. On face, the IWR seemed a cautious approach, one that Blix appreciated. It worked.

Also, many behind the scenes wanted to stop that runaway train, but few thought pre-emption would be a result after getting it to the UN.

How would the-no-people have contended with discovering and leveraging the inspectors? Any of it. Don’t even want to get into the politics, but this was an easier vote for some.

You need to go back to Kerrys speech on the floor of the vote to hear this was not a vote for war, not for regime change, and definitely not for pre-emption for regime change. They had to determine the reality, with claims from other countries, as well, there was something to find.

What we didn’t need was Leiberman, Gephardt, and Daschle doing an end run around Congress to get the language changed, ending the deliberations, the Biden-Lugar Amendment.

Can we get past the fog, primary and media misrepresentation, going on for years now, on the resolution and mobilize-ourselves-to please take action.

With all the unclear and hysterical rhetoric, assertions from Colin Powell, and others, important that we get in the inspectors, something Bush would not go. On face, the IWR seemed a cautious approach, one that Blix appreciated. It worked.

Also, many behind the scenes wanted to stop that runaway train, but few thought pre-emption would be a result after getting it to the UN.

How would the ‘no’ people have contended with discovering and leveraging the inspectors? Any of it. Don’t even want to get into the politics, but this was an easier vote for some.

You need to go back to Kerry’s speech on the floor of the vote to hear this was not a vote for war, not for regime change, and definitely not for pre-emption for regime change. They had to determine the reality, with claims from other countries, as well, there was something to find.

What we didn’t need was Leiberman, Gephardt, and Daschle doing an end run around Congress to get the language changed and end the deliberations, the Biden-Lugar Amendment.

Can we get past the fog, primary and media misrepresention, going on for years now, on the resolution and mobilize-ourselves-to please take action.

Tanbark

Kerry has eaten his Iraq vote – it’s been months now since he first did:

“The country and the Congress were misled into war. I regret that we were not given the truth; as I said more than a year ago, knowing what we know now, I would not have gone to war in Iraq. And knowing now the full measure of the Bush Administration’s duplicity and incompetence, I doubt there are many members of Congress who would give them the authority they abused so badly. I know I would not.”

“The truth is, if the Bush Administration had come to the United States Senate and acknowledged there was no “slam dunk case” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, acknowledged that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, there never would have even been a vote to authorize the use of force — just as there’s no vote today to invade North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or a host of regimes we rightfully despise.”

“I understand that as much as we might wish it, we can’t rewind the tape of history. There is, as Robert Kennedy once said, ‘enough blame to go around,’ and I accept my share of the responsibility. But the mistakes of the past, no matter who made them, are no justification for marching ahead into a future of miscalculations and misjudgments and the loss of American lives with no end in sight.”

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=952

If you’d stated your guess as a guess, I’d be inclined to agree. When you state it as though it’s fact, I have to think of it as a claim of mind reading.

Nor would I take that bet about the 2002 Congress. It’s nearly certain that someone in Congress just wanted to get home early without having to swim against the tide. Was Kerry one of them? If so, how did you know?

Bear in mind that in 2002 the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was still classified, and other than Senator Durbin I don’t know of a single Democratic senator who was allowed to see it, and whoever saw it was compelled not to discuss it. The Administration was claiming to know many things it turned out they did not know. At the time, my viewpoint was Feingold’s, which is I wasn’t going to believe it until I actually saw proof, and the case I saw wasn’t convincing. That should have been Kerry’s position, I think, and I wish he’d acknowledge that that was his mistake in judgement now.

If Kerry’s account of that time is accurate, then he was given promises that the Republicans later renegged (sp?) on. That’s happened quite often since then, so it would fit the pattern.

Kerry has also publicly regretted what he did, and has tried to make up for it since. That’s good enough for me. If it’s not good enough for you, that’s OK, but I think you should re-examine your assumptions first.

It may be that the best thing we can do is get out of the way and let them do it. I certainly haven’t heard a better proposal.