Only one logical position for any Democrat per the war:

This is the same question that essentially sunk John Kerry. It was asked today of Chuck Shumer with the same stupid, deadly, idiotic response for any Democrat who hopes to be elected, re-elected or unseat a Republican.

Q: Knowing now what you know today would you still vote to go to war in Iraq?

Answer #1 (favored by most Democrats because they DID vote for the authorization to go to war)- Yes, I would, because I was just AUTHORIZING the President to go to war if justified.
WRONG ANSWER!!!!

Most Americans would say that if they knew then what they know now, they have NEVER authorized going to war.

Why can't they -Pols- just say it? "I was wrong. I believed the intelligence I was shown but I now believe that there is evidence it was cherry-picked and over-stressed. If I knew then what I know today about the evidence that sent us to war, I would have voted no. There was no compelling, life or death reason for us to initiate war with Saddam Hussein. We should have continued with a policy of containment and pursued the true foes of America, Al-Quiada, in Afghanistan."

What is so f!@#$#$ing controversial about that viewpoint? Not to mention that it puts the war-mongering Republican liars exactly in the position they should be in - defending an indefensible war. Someone please explain to me why this is not the Democratic position?

Dammit, they're not getting there on their own. They need as many kicks in the ass from us as we can give.

NGU.

no point in asking because he is not a quisling & he voted no.

cantwell & murray, however, i do plan on asking.

you are wrong. that's why bush NEVER does it.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

the first one that says it will be the Dem candidate for Pres in 2008.

and he thinks they'll win.

country is in for the same old same ole. It's pathetic really. I don't care if it's just empty rhetoric. Hey reps, we want the spirit of dissent not descent. Even losing teams have cheer leaders. We've just got sycophants.

...say it to their faces, this country is in for the same ol' same ol'!! Dammit, why are so many people around here content to surrender their fates to someone else, when they could be taking things into their own hands??

NGU.

Say Senator X, a Dem, voted for IWR because he/she beleived Colin Powell when he said that Bush needed IWR to get leverage to get inspectors in, and that war would be a last resort, And Senator X has seen all the Top Secret stuff ( but we now know highly "fixed" evidence) that indicated that Saddam had WMD's and was trying to get a nuke.

Ok, now flash forward to 2004 -- Senator X says "I would vote against it, knowing what I know today."

Ok flash forward now to 2008 - Senator X has been elected president.

Ok flash forward now to 2009 - Some dictator REALLY REALLY has WMDs, has a nuke, and has kicked out inspectors. President X goes to congress and says listen I need some leverage to get inspectors in.

Repug senators say "No, you are lying like Bush, and you said you made a mistake when you voted for IWR, we are not going to make that mistake>"

So basically Bush screwed them over, but they don't want to be screwed if they face a real threat.

I am not saying this is right or wrong logically, this just my supposition. . .

and get past political parity.

democrats need energy and eloquence and clearly spelled out leftist ideals that have broad ranging appeal.

please note: i did not say moderate.

this is doable -- but democrats need to put a class ''a'' team together and get out there and fight.
then the millions of people -- like so many here at du -- will be THRILLED to be very excited and energetic cheerleaders, donaters, volunteers and anything else you can think of.

they're afraid of to be labeled as flip floppers and wafflers.

NGU.

Actually, they didn't vote for war, they voted to protect our country and it's citizens, by give our President the authority he needed to pursue Saddam and bring him into compliance with the UN inspections and resolutions. PRESIDENT BUSH ABUSED THIS AUTHORITY GIVEN TO HIM. Our Dem's had no way of knowing Bush was hell bent on all out war. They knew that Saddam was a dangerous man and one way or another he would have had to be dealt with. Not necessarily the way Bush did though. Not without pursing further support and exhausting all other avenues. I don't think you can ever say you made a mistake when you made a decision based on what you thought were in the best interests of America and it's citizens.
You people actually need to be kicking Bush's ass-not our Dem's.

Bush wanted war - we gave him war. Most thinking people are revisiting that decision. There are no WMD's which was the major premise of the war.

You stay with your husband, because he assures he is faithful.Then you are presented with a video of him at the Notel Motel with your next door neighbor, Bambi LaVixon. You now know that your initial premise (he is faithful) is false. You rightly question your initial decision which you believed was in the best interest of you and your children. Because now you know better.

You stay with your husband because you assume he is faithful. You even let him own a set of car keys.
He subsequently uses those car keys to visit Bambi.
Is it the wife's fault for allowing the husband to have car keys?

No. In the case of Iraq, the democrats who voted for authorization gave the commander in chief the latitude they thought he needed to mitigate the risk. With a commander-in-chief who posesses fewer pathological abnormalities, this might have worked out okay.

The fact that naively trusting George Bush about anything was a stupid thing to do is a different kettle of fish - one which misses the basic point; the president abused this authority and did something unforgivably bad with it.

Don't blame the victims... even if they are idiots.

You have a 20 year old son.

Your 20 year old son comes to you and says "I want to drink a beer."

You say "Here's a beer, but don't drink it until you are 21," then you give him a beer.

What does the son do? Drinks the beer right away. If he didn't want to drink it then, why would he have asked for it then?

If you didn't want him to drink a beer until he was 21, why didn't you wait until he turned 21 to give him a beer?


back to the real world: there are other ways to put pressure on Saddam and other WMD holders besides giving the president a blank check to go to war. You could pass a resolution of condemnation, or of intent to at a future point authorize force, or a resolution for force that is limited to getting rid of WMD (Biden-Lugar), or a resolution that triggers enactment if the inspectors get kicked out again.

Many Senators STILL supported the war after Bush proved that he wasn't just ASKING for levarage.

These same Democratic Senators said they did not regret their vote even though weapons of mass-destruction were not found. This is essentially what our '04 ticket of Kerry/Edwards was saying and it was a year and half into the war! I wish at this time they had been angry and indignant! The delegates at the '04 convention had to go along with it, and could not even condemn the war in the Democratic platform.

If the Senators that voted for the IWR, say they are wrong now, they will look like weak opportunists. And well they should!!! They waited TOO LONG! They will be perceived as simply stating the obvious because the war didn't turn out well, and hey, it's no longer POPULAR! Nevertheless, for the sake of the Democratic party, I hope they step up to the plate, admit how stupid their vote was, and take the consequences. We certainly don't need Schumer's Neo-con rational that it was all about terrorism.
I just wish the people like Russert would stop lumping all the Democrats together on this. Twenty-two Democratic Senators with wisdom and spine did not support this thing, my Dem congressman did not support it, and Dean, Clark, and Kusinich did not to support it!

But the fact that the Beltway Democrats are still repeating this shit may explain why they were so embarrassed by Michael Moore's Farenheit 911.

You know, the reason the Nazis were able to consolidate power is because the Democrats of that time let them! At one time there were more Jews than Nazis in Germany.

People DO believe that line of Bullshit. Strange, but true, the lengths the human mind will go to to avoid disillusionment.

Most people believe that voting for the IWR was a vote for war. You can natter on about "authority to go to war" or "putting pressure on Saddam" until the cows come home and most people will not see the difference.

I knew back when this vote happened that once Congress gave him the ball that Bush would take it and run with it.

I do not see what is wrong with saying. "I was wrong to trust President Bush. It was the biggest mistake of my political career."

That is not "flip-flopping" that is acknowlidging the reality of a situation.

Kucinich said it all in "A Prayer for America."

He was right, of course.

If they were, they wouldn't have supported Forrest Bush's dimwitted war in the first place. I don't buy the rest of the bullshit. I DON"T HAVE ACCESS TO INTELLIGENCE.. but, by god, I could, doing research on my own, find evidence that refuted every one of the Bush administration's lies during the 'build up' to war. WHy couldn't the poor, victimized dems who whine about being misled? Goddamitt.. I heard the same shit and I could see through the shit at the time, why couldn't they? I'm not a genius. I'm barely smarter than the average bear, after all.

Those who voted for the resolution make me sick.

A couple of Kerry's cheerleaders like to play the endless broken record of Kerry's supposedly endless pursuit of the Bush Criminal Empire, which hasn't kept any Bush out of office unfortunately. If Kerry knows all about the BCE's criminality, as I do, then he should never trust one word that comes out of any of their mouths, as I don't. For Kerry to say he trusted the pResident makes him either a liar or an idiot, and I'm not comfortable with trusting either.

LIED to me."

That's ALL they have to say.

That's all they need to say.

:thumbsup:

Democrats must take responsibility for their own failure to stop the war and to ask questions that needed to be asked.

Most of them have "forgotten" how to tell the truth since corporate money has been allowed to flow to them in historic quantities. Telling the truth for most pols means you're out of the sweetest job you've never been qualified to hold; ask Pete McClosky.

Gyre

I am not arguing against that response, just providing the likely rebuttal.

"So, you would rather have Saddam back in power!"

That is the knee jerk Republican response....and a fairly effective one I might add. A simplistic, no-thought-required attack that is easily digested by the masses.

"Then what is your point?! Democrats saw the same evidence that the President did and made the same decision they did....to go into Iraq. Well, the only difference is that W is a strong enough leader to see the job through, where the demorats want to cut and run! COWARDS!!"

Another effective no-though-required soundbite.

IMHO the most effective argument is EXIT STRATEGY. Move past the "why did we invade Iraq" argument. It is a tough win for either party. The easy target is how and when do we leave. The polls clearly show that the public is ready to start getting our troops out of there and the administration refuses to touch the subject with a ten foot poll. We need to come up with an effective exit strategy that is NOT cut-and-run. Don't set firm dates....just rough time frames and goals. As the administration refuses to even discuss the issue it will make them look preposterously out of touch with the public.

This is the only sure fire winner the Dems have right now with an oh-so-ill-informed public.

That's the key, right there. What we, and especially the politicians are up against is that ill-informed public. Only I like to call them mis-informed.

It is also a public with lust for revenge. 9/11 created that lust and * fed off that lust. That passion and desire - the lust for revenge - was an overwhelming force which is just now starting to subside.

Revenge is/was a force to be reckoned with and the politicians especially had to reckon with it. Some dems danced around it, many decided it would be political suicide to face it head on.

Demanding an exit strategy is the best political way to deal with the situation. It is the politically correct thing to do and one which places the burden squarely on the * admins. without having to face head on the revenge motive of the mis-informed public.

Then they would be letting down their real constituents, Corporate America. And lord knows, they're too addicted to that corporate cash to let it go away. Thus Corporate America gets their wish list, and we the people are left with shit.

"Knowing what I know about his performance now, I would not have voted as I did."

Next Question...

"So America would be safer with Saddam remaining in power?"

"First, I'm not sure he would still be in power, even had we not invaded. Secondly, yes, Americans would be safer today at home and abroad if Saddam had been left in power. He was no threat to us, the Administration knew it, that's been proven."

No, knowing that the president would lie to lead us into war, I would not vote for the resolution.

It's that simple