Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., whiffed on a softball question during the presidential campaign, saying that he would still vote to go to war with Iraq if he knew then what he knows now.
Huh? We know now that Iraq didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction, that it didn’t have ties to al-Qaida or any involvement in Sept. 11, and that our invasion produced a quagmire in which we will be stuck for years. But Kerry still thinks voting for war was a good idea?
Now, a year after the campaign is over, Kerry’s running mate, former Sen. John Edwards, is finally coming clean.
“It was a mistake to vote for this war in 2002,” he wrote in a Washington Post commentary over the weekend. “I take responsibility for that mistake. It has been hard to say these words because those who didn’t make a mistake — the men and women of our armed forces and their families — have performed heroically and paid a dear price.”
Even Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has acknowledged that senators didn’t do their jobs by accepting at face value some of the prewar intelligence. “I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action,” he said on “Fox News Sunday” this weekend.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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30 Comments
Whoa, John, go out on a limb!
Many of us saw that the arguments for attacking Iraq-what we were told, anyway-didn’t square with known facts. Part of the war on terror (as if there ever was such a thing, and it made coherent sense)? Hello?? Earth calling fools? Osama bin Forgotten?
Weapons of mass destruction? We had been controlling materials going into Iraq for a friggin’ decade!
Hell, you knew better. Even said so.
So John finally finds his voice, 2 1/2 after the carnage began, and a year after his opinion makes 2 shits worth of difference. Wonderful.
Edwards in ‘08? Right, dude. Guess it beats the status quo, but that’s saying nothing. A dead cat would be better than what we have now.
By the way, folks, thanks for opposing the war in ‘02. Now why did you endorse that S.0.B. anyway?
I remember during the presidential campaign, I howled when Dean didn’t make it. We needed that…someone who KNEW this war was total BS and wasn’t afraid to call the administration on it. But it seemed to me that Kerry didn’t want to ruffle too many feathers, or SOMETHING.Here’s my question, since I knew the truth about this war ALL ALONG…I knew there were no WMDs, that W just wanted to settle a score, that there were other places that needed our attention…I knew this, does that make me smarter than all of the idiots who supported, or at least enabled, the president to start this sorry war? I’m smarter than all of the senators who voted to authorize force? HELL, NO! I think they knew in their gut that this was WRONG, and based on LIES–but they didn’t want to appear “traitorous” or “unpatriotic” or “French”.In the words of Howard Dean, “AAAAARRRGH!”
*Sigh*
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007540
A good read!
So many now say that they knew the truth. The true that Bush was lieing. The truth that Bush was not lieing. They knew this before the last election, they knew it before the invasion.
Where were you then? Why do you come forward only now? Why did you not stand on the mountain top yelling your head off? If you knew then, why were you silent and not saying it here and everywhere you had access to?
I knew before the last election and stated such here, at work, anywhere I could find two people that stood still long enough to hear me. Most did not listen, they called me a Liberal, a traitor, a fool.
Joe your link is like that, how long has it been said that Bush lied? Yet suddenly here it is in Black and white the facts to affirm the case for war.
Before the election Richard Clarke was on several shows. Explaining what was wrong, yet Bush was re-elected! The new of the NIE of 2002 came out that concluded that there was not prove that Sadam STILL had WMDs. That there was not link between Sadam and any terrorist group.
Yet Bush was still re-elected!Yesterday I laughed my head off at the Cons. bashing the Liberals on yahoo boards for being soo stupid as to have taken the President’s word that there was cause to go to war. When the evidense was so apparently fake! They are stupid for not seeing for them selves that it was fake, so the war is their fault!
Sorry but it gets me that people are starting to come out of the woodwork now saying that they knew back then!
The Dems were for the war until the going got tough. That is all this is, Monday morning QB’ing.
Whose War?
A neoconservative clique seeks to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interest.
by Patrick J. Buchanan
The War Party may have gotten its war. But it has also gotten something it did not bargain for. Its membership lists and associations have been exposed and its motives challenged. In a rare moment in U.S. journalism, Tim Russert put this question directly to Richard Perle: “Can you assure American viewers … that we’re in this situation against Saddam Hussein and his removal for American security interests? And what would be the link in terms of Israel?”
Suddenly, the Israeli connection is on the table, and the War Party is not amused. Finding themselves in an unanticipated firefight, our neoconservative friends are doing what comes naturally, seeking student deferments from political combat by claiming the status of a persecuted minority group. People who claim to be writing the foreign policy of the world superpower, one would think, would be a little more manly in the schoolyard of politics. Not so.
Former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot kicked off the campaign. When these “Buchananites toss around ‘neoconservative’—and cite names like Wolfowitz and Cohen—it sometimes sounds as if what they really mean is ‘Jewish conservative.’” Yet Boot readily concedes that a passionate attachment to Israel is a “key tenet of neoconservatism.” He also claims that the National Security Strategy of President Bush “sounds as if it could have come straight out from the pages of Commentary magazine, the neocon bible.” (For the uninitiated, Commentary, the bible in which Boot seeks divine guidance, is the monthly of the American Jewish Committee.)
David Brooks of the Weekly Standard wails that attacks based on the Israel tie have put him through personal hell: “Now I get a steady stream of anti-Semitic screeds in my e-mail, my voicemail and in my mailbox. … Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving. It’s just that its epicenter is no longer on the Buchananite Right, but on the peace-movement left.”
Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan endures his own purgatory abroad: “In London … one finds Britain’s finest minds propounding, in sophisticated language and melodious Oxbridge accents, the conspiracy theories of Pat Buchanan concerning the ‘neoconservative’ (read: Jewish) hijacking of American foreign policy.”
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
Joe Blow,
So now I’ve gone from being a voice crying out in the wilderness to being a Monday morning quarterback?
Back in 2003 I spent a week outside in the rain protesting the already-decided-upon war. Ever since I’ve never yielded and never let anyone forget it. I’ve earned my right to say I told you so.
Bush lied about WMD, al Qaeda, and everything else. Iraq was never a threat to the U.S. People like me were right and people like you were wrong–completely wrong. How’s that crow taste, Joe Blow?
George Bush is a massive liar who has total contempt for American democracy. When Democrats retake the House and Senate next year, their first order of business should to be impeach George W. Bush.
writerdog, word: I love that observation from the Yahoo boards that the one who believes the lie is guilty while the liar is innocent. Wingnut reasoning–astonishing to behold.
CF
Did you read my post above yours?
Patrick J. Buchanan tells all about Zionist Israel involvement.
Ed,
Buchanan and I sometimes arrive at the same conclusion, but from such radically different premises as to make our agreement superficial. In this case, I suppose the enemy of my enemy (neocons) is my friend (Buchanan); but with friends like Buchanan, does a leftist like me need enemies? ;|
On a different note, Ed, I was curious to hear your take on the Israeli / Palestinian Gaza border crossing agreement.
CF
That’s a good step, which includes a seaport.
The White House is catching so much heat from Israeli brutality, firing artillery into Gaza at helpless civilians, and dropping bombs, they had to do something.
A real President could solve that whole problem in a week.
But not Bush.
Ed,
Agreed. Getting through Israeli territories still sounds onerous for Palestianian civilians (bus convoys and such), but the seaport is a big deal, and the promise of an airport also has been floated.
One just hopes to God it can all happen. A lot of people have given their lives for Bush’s intransigence.
CF
I wrote a piece that Hamas should stand-down.
Hamas feeds, cares, gives medicine for Palestinians and their children, but Israel/US has beat that “terrorist drum” so long, that Hamas has become a liaibility.
Arab News published a peice I wrote telling Hamas to throw-away those stupid rockets { that can’t hit anything } stop looking like “terrorists”
Buy some uniforms {powder-blue } and call themselves the PDF { Palestinians Defense Force } but they’re too hardheaded, and I told them so.
The bigest “terrorist Organisation” in the world is the IDF, but they play a smarter game.
Ed,
Indeed. Nothing like the architecture of liberal democracy and the nation-state to legitimate one’s use of terror.
Hamas would be well-advised to get on with the extreme makeover you suggest: ditch the rockets, suicide bombers, and futile war without end against Israel.
Frankly, if folks in Gaza can begin to enjoy some normalcy, that will take the wind out of the sails powering the extreme elements of Hamas. Fingers crossed…
CF
The problem is that Sharon knows how to push their button. He shoots some Palestinians for throws rocks at a tank or just protesting the “wall” { The Israeli Supreme Court said “shooting Palestinian protesting women in the legs was all right for protesting the “wall” } and bingo here comes some retaliation.
The last truce, the Palestinians held the truce through 4 or 5 “incedents” until they finally fought back.
If the US would referee, that wouldn’t have happened.
Ed,
Yes. And this returns us to my original question. I gather that you think Sharon is using this new agreement to buy time? If so, what do you think his game is here? What is behind this concession? What does Sharon think he’s getting, and, alternatively, what is he trying to cloak/conceal that’s going on in some other situation?
Bottom line: has Sharon made the agreement for PR purposes so that Condi can save face, and is it only a matter of time until he manufactures / instigates some Palestinian ‘outrage’ that justifies the breaking of the agreement?
Of course they would vote for the war again! Unless of course their political barometer told them not to. The Senators, democrat and republican only worry about keeping their sorry butts in office, not the security of the nation.
Phillip, I know you are pretty busy, but in case you missed this in the WSJ yesterday, here’s the link:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Production/files/podhoretz1205advance.html
I agree with esod’s first point: the Senators who voted for the war against their better judgment abdicated their sworn duties as constitutional officers. Their treason is as serious as Bush’s.
But esod then invokes Podhertz, the guiltiest of the guilty, and among the most dishonest of all the liars who lied America into this futile and disastrous war.
In Podhertz’s piece, one sees no mention of the al Qaeda operative who fed phony info about links between Saddam and al Qaeda, which was discredited by the CIA, but then used by Bush to assert Saddam’s connection to 9/11. And this info was known to be false.
Podhertz is in up to his neck with the lies, bullying, and violence. Who expects him to stop spinning to cover his ass? His word doesn’t mean shit.
CF
The first step was to close-off the Palestinians into the Gaza “open-air Prison.”
Sharon had to move the “settlers” out-of-the-way.
Then start another killing spree in the West Bank, later herding all those Palestinians who hadn’t been killed into the Gaza Prison.
There, The Palestinians could be slaughtered using chemicals or biological weapons or whatever {they’re being walled-in }.
But first he needs to take-out Syria and Lebanon, which is why he killed the ex-Prime Minster of Lebanon to start that trouble with Syria.
Sharon is deathly afraid of Hisbollah and I don’t know why.
The Zionists want the entire Middle East. Exactly how this will all play-out is anybody’s guess.
The wildcard is Iran.
Putin of Russia smells a rat and has given missiles to both Pakistan and Iran.
This situation is very dangerous for the entire world.
And having our idiot Bush in the White House right now is not a good thing.
This is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Democratic cowards in Washington, but we need to remember what the environment was when the vote in question was cast. It was just before the 2002 election and the administration lackeys were screaming from the rooftops about WMD, Mushroom Clouds over major American cities, and Model airplanes spewing poison over the east coast. Republicans had Americans stampeding in fear. If any Democrat had stood up against the war, the republicans would have imeadiately claimed they were soft on terrorism. At that time, that would have almost garanteed not being re-elected. Democrats are guilty of cowardice. republicans are guilty of lying and extortion. The republicans lied and bullied this country into a needless war, a war that history will remember as “The Bush War”.
XXX,
Indeed. When Cynthia McKinney voted against the House resolution authorizing force, she was vilified and lost re-election. She has since been returned to office.
That said, the fact is, Democrats were wrong to have voted for the resolution. And they know it. For people like Edwards to admit this is the first step in restoring trust. A big man says he’s wrong. A Republican denies there’s a problem and attacks the patriotism of his opponents.
Democrats are way out in front of the GOP when it comes to credibility and keeping faith with the American people.
Expect more lies from Bush, and more indictments from Fitzgerald.
Damn Phil, get the quotes right. Roberts said that IF SOME DEMOCRATS were suckered into voting for the war IN ERROR, they weren’t doing their job. (or words to that effect)
In fairness to the Democrats, the White House had cooked the Intel.
I think the democrats had a right to expect better from Bush.
And probably no reliable way to “uncook” what had been served-up.
Yup. That’s why Kerry lost.
Not liberal ENOUGH!
We won’t make that mistake again.
I’M HOPING THAT PHIL JOURNEY AND HIS COHORTS READ THE EAGLE’S COMMENT PAGE!! MY HUSBAND HAS TRIED TO CONTACT HIM TO ASK HIM TO RESEARCH A STATE STATUTE WHICH PROHIBITS ANY PROTESTS TO TAKE PLACE ONE HOUR BEFORE FUNERALS, DURING FUNERALS, AND TWO HOURS AFTER. IF THAT IS THE CASE, HOW ABOUT ARRESTING PHELPS AND HIS “CREW” EACH TIME THEY SHOW UP AT ONE OF THESE SERVICES? I’M APPALLED THAT PHELPS AND FOLLOWERS CAN’T EXTRACT THE ACTION THAT CAUSED THE DEMISE OF THE INDIVIDUAL FROM THE INDIVIDUAL’S DEDICATION, SELFLESSNESS AND PATRIOTISM!! SHAME ON PHELPS AND HIS FOLLOWERS!!!! DO THEY THINK THAT THEY ARE AMERICANS?
Kerry wasn’t liberal enough? Heh, heh, heh. Might want to keep in mind that Democrats can’t win with just their base. I had to hold my nose to vote for him. Not saying he isn’t a good man. I just think Democrats could do a little better. Surely we can find someone who isn’t from Mass.
republicans are lying when they say Democrats saw the same intelligence. The administration witheld information that didn’t support their rush to war.
“Where were you then? Why do you come forward only now? Why did you not stand on the mountain top yelling your head off? If you knew then, why were you silent and not saying it here and everywhere you had access to?”
I totally shit a brick trying to convince people that this war was WRONG. Anyone who knows me that I was never silent on this issue, not ever.Couldn’t make it to DC in 2003 tho…senior year of high school, ya know.
By the way, does anyone know WHY Kerry said he’d still vote to go to war knowing then what he knows now? Where’s the logic? That was categorically stupid.
Valerie,
Kerry said that? What a numb-nuts. If there needed to be a final nail in the coffin of his prospective 2008 candidacy, that was it.
I think the dems will get a better candidate than Kerry anyway.Now if they can just keep him from trying to endorse candidates maybe they’ll suceed this time.
Kerry said that because the Democratic Leadership Council–the people who think Democrats can’t win unless they become more Republican–told him to say it.
And, not wanting to offend a powerful faction of the political machine, he did.
He voted to give Bush the authority to make war (an abrogation of his Constituional duty) on the incredible premise that Bush might be telling the truth. He started opposing it two months later when the friggin’ obvious happened. Too little, too late.
I don’t know whether he was playing politics with soldiers’ lives, or was actually afraid Bush might pull some genuine evidence out of his ass. Probably a combination of both. His floor speech was loaded with caveats, but he still voted for the blank check. He still has a lot of atonement to do.
Agreed, Rage. Good post.