what do you all make of this ? (IWR)

with news of Edwards being ready to run again people are again bringing up the IWR vote. yet many of these people never seem to respond or care about attempts to get out of Iraq.

so what is the priority of these people ? it's not getting out of Iraq for sure. and many who didn't vote for the IWR (most whow ere not in the SEnate) also did not attend any protests to oppose the war either. Kucinich is probably the only one who is running to have voted against it and we saw how well he did.

people regularly bash Hillary for not apologizing or refusal to call for withdrawal. yet when some people do that they are ignored.

personally with Edwards i have more of a problem with him not knowing the President of South Africa and lack of substance on some issues than whether he voted for the IWR.

Kerry, Hillary, Edwards, and Obama

Gore would be one, too, but I don't think he's going to run.

Had Obama been smart, he would have voted for the Kerry/Feingold amendment. He could have been the anti-war candidate all the way. Instead, he spoke against the war before it started and then while in the Senate, failed to show any leadership on Iraq, just towing the leadership line. I probably need to study his current position better, before I speak of his ideas now, but I think his plan is not as good as Kerry's.

But going back to my original point, 3 of the 4 voted yes for the IWR. I'm not sure if Obama is going to launch a full scale attack on those 3, though. He's trying to be Mr. Centrist, Mr. "On the other hand" so an anti-war stance showing no forgiveness doesn't seem to be his style. That makes me wonder how big a deal that vote is "out there", when so many of the candidates voted yes.

I do not think Gore will run. I am also not convinced Obama is running.

I am less than certain that the IWR will be a big issue in 08. However, it is probable that the debate within the party and outside will be the traditionnal one: diplomacy against military.

This morning, Hillary could not bring herself to oppose sending more troops in Iraq. She started saying they needed a plan, the solution was not military, ..., but, when asked, she did not say: do not send more troops. Biden, on the contrary, said clearly "do not send more troops". We know Kerry can articulate a plan that goes to diplomacy as a solution, but who else can do that will be interesting.

The other aspect will probably be a domestic plan that holds the road. Expect everybody to come with a "universal health plan". Then, when you start to read it, expect that none will actually offer that as "Health is a right", but that most will come out with "health is a duty". I would welcome somebody who does differently, but, unfortunately, this seems to be one of those things Democrats do not want to talk about.

I also expect there will be a dark horse, somebody that people are totally dismissing and who, once he makes his case, will have success. I am not sure who it will be. A governor may be?

Anyway, it will be interesting to see, but I laugh at the prognosticers. It will probably be fun to see what happens in the next year. So many people in the Beltway had annointed Bayh or Warner as probable nominees who will beat Clinton that it is funny to read the columns from a few months ago.

McCain may be wrongheaded, whorish, and generally a sellout, but at least he took a politically risky position and stuck to it.

Hillary doesn't want to take any stance on the war. What is she waiting on? Does she honestly think that it's going to get markedly better by 2008? The general public doesn't care about the IWR, seeing it, quite rightly, as an irrelevant past vote. It is Bush's war, not Congress's -- certainly not Congressional Democrats'. But I think people WILL care about Hillary's complete cowardice on the war.

although his current position is more important. There he is not in Kerry's league in coming up with a real plan. He seems to stay very vague and keeps his position between Kerry's and the centrists. I assume he intends to run on domestic issues while keeping his Iraq position "acceptable".

On the IWR, his position is NOT the same as Kerry's. Kerry has dealt with this by pointing to things he did and said in 2002 and 2003. One of the best summaries was on the Senate floor in the wake of the Bush administration veteran's day (2005) attack on him and other Democrats.

Kerry can show that his position was consistent from 2002 - 2004 - phrases like "War as a last resort" and "didn't exhaust the diplomacy" "Don't rush to war" back Kerry's position as having given Bush the authority to give him leverage at the UN and that it was given because of Bush promises to go to war only as a last resort - and only to disarm Saddam.

The Pepperdine speech adds another layer that would usually not be seen- tying the words Kerry used in 2002/2003 to his interetation of St. Augustine's definition of a just war. He said in that speech that the Iraq war was not a just war. This connects to his many comments that this is an immoral war. This goes to the very root of his beliefs.

In Contrast:
- Edwards was a co-sponsor and he was on the Intelligence Committee - so he saw more of the then current intelligence than Kerry. He was not just a yes vote on the resolution - he was pro-war.

- There is an Oct 2003 Hardball interview where he clearly says that he didn't think there were WMD in Iraq and he thought there were other valid reasons to go to war. This was Oct 2003 - about 6 months into the war. Other comments mitigate this - but not much. It could be a problem for 2 reasons.
1) In his "I was wrong comment" he refers later in the op-ed to being misled. The Hardball interview suggests that he STILL thought invading was the right thing to do 6 months later. It also suggests that he is not being totally honest in his apology statement.

2) It leaves open what his philosophy is on war and under what circumstances he would take the nation to war. This is a very valid thing to want to know and it would be best if he pro-actively explained this. I am very comfortable that if Kerry were President in 2002, there would have been no discussion of going to war with Iraq. I'm not as sure with Edwards, as some of the words in the Hardball interview seem PNAC influenced.

I assume that he has since rejected those ideas - but I have some residual concerns. (the people I don't understand are those backing Edwards who blame Kerry because he was experienced enough to know beeter and excuse Edwards because he was inexperienced.

I have not seen anyone other than those people heavily involved with the blogosphere who are making these (ignorant) statements like "I will never support anyone who 'voted for the war.'" Those people are the same ones who gravitated to Dean. They would support Feingold if he were in the race, most likely.

I don't think they are in touch with reality, not to mention the pulse of America. America isn't interested in holier-than-thou politics; it's interested in a solution. Feingold's recent comments really echo what these people think, in fact -- the war is not THEIR problem because they, and only they, were "pure" from the beginning. They seem to think that anyone who voted "for the war" must do eternal penance for it by advocating withdrawal, but when they DO, it's never enough to get them out of War Purist Purgatory. They're a type of fundamentalist. That "war vote" is an unforgivable sin to them and always will be.

Kerry has made statements about the IWR vote. I don't think it's necessary to bring it up specifically again, although he may make passing references to it being a mistake in speeches. If he came out and made a particular statement about it, those people wouldn't be placated, because the bottom line is that they're determined to dislike him, and they'd say it was pandering/insincere/flip-flopping. I have given up hope of anything changing that. They're not reasonable people. For all intents and purposes, they're freepers.

"Anti-war" leftism is a religion for these people, and they are every bit as rigid, dogmatic, intolerant, narrow-minded, and draconian as the religious fundamentalists whom they claim to be so much more enlightened than.

But then again, every breed of fundamentalist claims to be the ONLY segment of society in possession of The Absolute Truth, so therefore everyone else is by necessity damned/evil/hopelessly and irrevocably wrong.

Did I ever mention the T-shirt I saw at the Mass Dem Party convention this summer? There was a T-shirt vendor and one of the shirts he was selling said "I'm already against the next war." That's such a perfect example of the mindset of the Dogmatic Anti-war Fundies. Having NO IDEA what the circumstances behind the "next war" could be, they're already decided that it is Wrong and that anyone who supports it is Evil and Loves War. Seriously, what if - for example - North Korea launched an unprovoked nuclear strike and wiped Seattle off the map? Would they be against THAT war?

There are two types of anti-war activists: those who geniunely are distressed by the tragedy of the war and support bringing the troops home, and those who care about the war only insofar as it gives them "progressive" street cred. The first group is interested in what politicians are saying NOW about Iraq and aren't hung up over the IWR - they want to know who has a real plan to end the war. The second group doesn't really care or pay attention to what is going on in Iraq today and doesn't think much about how to end the war NOW - rather, they are obsessed with reminding EVERYONE that "they were right" in 2002 and therefore they are better progressives because they "knew back then" that Bush was a liar. Iraq is nothing more to them than a progressive litmus test by which they assert their righteous and unassailable leftist credentials. They believe themselves to be entirely above the war and the struggle to find a workable solution to end it; because they were "always against it," they have washed their hands of any responsibility towards Iraq or our troops. I find these people as morally repulsive as freepers who continue to assert that we must stay in Iraq in order to save Bush's credibility.