There was a presidential debate the night of Kyl-Lieberman. Why didn't Obama even mention Kyl-Liebe?

He was passionately opposed to it. Or so we are told. He is a leader. Or so we are told. When Iran came up why didn't Obama reference the bill that he would later use to bludgeon Hillary? Gravel brought it up and denounced it. Hillary, after being attacked by Gravel, stated her position on it like any leader would. Did the former constitutional scholar (and his office...) just forget about it, even though it was the subject of a heated moment just minutes earlier?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21013767/

GRAVEL: If it stops the killing, my God, yes, do it.

And, Tim, you’re really missing something. This is fantasy land. We are talking about ending the war. My God, we’re just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today. Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has offered another resolution and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to war with Iran.

I want to congratulate Biden for voting against it, Dodd for voting against it.

And I am ashamed of you, Hillary, for voting for it. You’re not going to get another shot at this because what happens if this war ensues, we invade, and they’re looking for an excuse to do it. And Obama was not even there to vote.

RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I want to give you a chance to respond.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: I don’t know where to start.

RUSSERT: Please take 30 seconds.

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: Yes. Let me respond.

My understanding of the Revolutionary Guard in Iran is that it is promoting terrorism. It is manufacturing weapons that are used against our troops in Iraq. It is certainly the main agent of support for Hezbollah, Hamas and others.

And in what we voted for today, we will have an opportunity to designate it as a terrorist organization which gives us the options to be able to impose sanctions on the primary leaders to try to begin to put some teeth into all this talk about dealing with Iran.

We wouldn’t be where we are today if the Bush administration hadn’t outsourced our diplomacy with respect to Iran and ignored Iran and called it part of the axis of evil. Now we’ve got to make up for lost time and lost ground...

RUSSERT: I just want to pick up on Senator Gravel’s point.

Senator Dodd, is it practical for you as a senator and others who now serve in Congress to go back to Washington and for 40 consecutive days try to cut off the funding for the war...

DODD: Well, I...

RUSSERT: ... suspend your campaigns if necessary and bring the issue -- crystallize it in a way that the American people will understand exactly what’s going on?

DODD: Well, I think we’re going to have that opportunity over and over again in the coming days. There’s going to be a request, I think, for something in the neighborhood of $200 billion that the administration is going to seek to continue to prosecute the war. So we’ll have our chances to do it.

I think it’s a little unrealistic to assume every single day you do that, Mike. But certainly you can do this when the opportunity arises.

And that, Tim, is the point was trying to make to you a moment ago, here.

We need to be take—understanding what powers exist in the institution of the Congress, those of us who serve there, and use that opportunity to do what the Constitution has given us, and that is to stop the funding. That’s what we need to be doing.

Now, look, I realize you may not get 60 votes or even 51 votes for this. But I think clarity and leadership are called for at this hour, here. If you’re going top seek the presidency of the United States and you’re in a position, today, to do something about this, then, in my view, it’s an opportunity to stand up and lead on this issue to bring this war, which is doing great damage to our country, to a halt.

DODD: It’s hurting our nation terribly, and it needs to be brought to a halt. And the power of the purse allows you to do that.

RUSSERT: We have so much to cover. I want to talk about Iran, and this is...

BIDEN: Tim, can I...

RUSSERT: We have...

BIDEN: What we voted on was not partition. I don’t want anybody thinking it was partition. And it’s the only time we got 26 Republicans to reject the president’s policies.

KUCINICH: You’re splitting...

RUSSERT: All right, fine.

KUCINICH: ... Iraq up.

RUSSERT: Fine. Fine.

KUCINICH: That’s what it does.

RUSSERT: OK, all right—all right, we’ve had that discussion.

Senator Clinton, in 1981, the Israelis took out a nuclear reactor in Iraq. On September 6th, to the best of our information, Israel attacked Syria because there was suspicion that perhaps North Korea had put some nuclear materials in Syria. If Israel concluded that Iran’s nuclear capability threatened Israel’s security, would Israel be justified in launching an attack on Iran?

CLINTON: Tim, I think that’s one of those hypotheticals, that is...

RUSSERT: It’s not a hypothetical, Senator.

CLINTON: ... better not addressed at this time.

RUSSERT: It’s real life. It’s real...

CLINTON: What is real life is what apparently happened in Syria, so let’s take that one step at a time.

RUSSERT: But my question—no, let me finish.

CLINTON: I know what the question is.

RUSSERT: My question is...

CLINTON: But I think it’s important to lay out what we know about Syria...

RUSSERT: What Israel—my question is...

CLINTON: ... because we don’t have as much information as I wish we did. But what we think we know is that with North Korean help, both financial and technical and material, the Syrians apparently were putting together, and perhaps over some period of years, a nuclear facility, and the Israelis took it out. I strongly support that.

We don’t have any more information than what I have just described. It is highly classified. It is not being shared. But I don’t want to go a step further and talk about what might or might not happen down the road with Iran.

RUSSERT: My question was...

CLINTON: But I think it is fair to say what happened in Syria, so far as we know, I support.

RUSSERT: My question is: Would the Israelis be justified if they felt their security was being threatened by the presence of a nuclear presence in Iran, and they decided to take military action? Would they be justified?

CLINTON: Well, Tim, I’m not going to answer that, because what I understand is...

KUCINICH: I’ll answer it.

GRAVEL: I’ll...

CLINTON: ... that there was evidence...

(LAUGHTER)

CLINTON: Well, let me just finish and then Mike and Dennis can answer.

CLINTON: But there was evidence of a North Korea freighter coming in with supplies. There was intelligence and other kinds of verification.

So I don’t think it’s a question of if they feel it. That is a much higher standard of proof. Apparently it was met with respect to Syria.

RUSSERT: You will all be running against a Republican opponent, perhaps Rudy Giuliani. This is what he said.

“Iran is not going to be allowed to build a nuclear power. If they get to a point where they’re going to become a nuclear power, we will prevent them, we will set them back eight to 10 years. That is not said as a threat. That should be said as a promise.”

Would you make a promise as a potential commander in chief that you will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power and will use any means to stop it?

CLINTON: Well, what I have said is that I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, including the use of diplomacy, the use of economic sanctions, opening up direct talks. We haven’t even tried. That’s what is so discouraging about this.

So then you have the Republican candidates on the other side jumping to the kind of statements that you just read to us.

We need a concerted, comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran.

We haven’t had it; we need it—and I will provide it.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, would Israel be justified in launching an attack on Iran if they felt their security was jeopardized?

OBAMA: I think it’s important to back up for a second, Tim, and just understand. Number one, Iran is in a stronger position now than it was before the Iraq war because the Congress authorized the president to go in.

And so, it indicates the degree to which we’ve got to make sure before we launch attacks or make judgments of this sort, that we actually understand the intelligence and we have done a good job in sorting it through.

Now, we don’t know exactly what happened with respect to Syria.

We’ve gotten general reports, but we don’t know all the specifics.

OBAMA: We got general reports in the run-up to the Iraq war that proved erroneous, and a lot of people voted for that war as a consequence.

Now, we are a stalwart ally of Israel and I think it is important to understand that we will back them up in terms of their security. But it is critical to understand that—until we have taken the diplomatic routes that are required to tighten economic sanctions—I have a plan right now to make sure that private pension funds in this country can divest from their holdings in Iran. Until we have gathered the international community to put the squeeze on Iran economically, then we shouldn’t be having conversations about attacks on Iran.

I think what Mayor Giuliani said was irresponsible, because we have not yet come to that point. We have not tried the other approach.

RUSSERT: So you would not offer a promise to the American people, like Giuliani, that Iran will not be able to develop and become a nuclear power.

OBAMA: I make an absolute commitment that we will do everything we need to do to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

OBAMA: One of the things we have to try, though, is to talk directly to Iran; something that we have not been doing.

And one of the disagreements that we have on this stage is the degree to which the next president is going to have to engage in the sort of personal diplomacy that can bring about a new era in the region. And that means talking to everybody. We’ve got to talk to our enemies and not just our friends.

It exposes his voting for the nearly identical R 970.

RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, would the Israelis be justified in launching an attack if they felt their security was threatened by a nuclear presence in Iran?

EDWARDS: Well, let me say, first of all, I think there’s a clear responsible course for America with respect to Iran. And that responsible course is to recognize that Ahmadinejad is unpopular in his own country.

EDWARDS: And if we work with our friends in Europe in the European banking system, we can put a clear proposal on the table for the Iranian people; sticks and carrots. Carrots being, we will help you with your economy if, in fact, you give up your nuclear ambitions. The flip side being, there will be severe economic sanctions if you don’t.

But I want to come back to a discussion that took place a few minutes ago to make everyone understands what Senator Gravel is talking and Senator Clinton was talking about. Because there was a very important vote cast in the United States Senate today. And it was, basically, in a resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

I voted for this war in Iraq, and I was wrong to vote for this war. And I accept responsibility for that. Senator Clinton also voted for this war.

EDWARDS: We learned a very different lesson from that. I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran.

And I think that vote today, which Senator Biden and Senator Dodd voted against, and they were correct to vote against it, is a clear indication of the approach that all of us would take with the situation in Iran because what I learned in my vote on Iraq was you cannot give this president the authority and you can’t even give him the first step in that authority because he cannot be trusted. And that resolution that was voted on today was a very clear indication...

If only he were trying to be the first white male president.

Do you think from here on out, all candidates will require a gimmick?

The msm decided to make this a two horse race on the Democratic side, although they have no problem with four, and now with the rise of Huckabee, five horses on the other side. It is unfair because Edwards is a viable candidate, was as viable as Obama early in 2007 when Obama was selected, and Edwards has a very compelling life story. I think we are going to see more of an "American Idolization" of our politics. If Obama brings a new type of politics this is what he will bring.