Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Iraq
Senator Obama has made a lot out of his anti-war stance. He has repeated a lie that he would have voted against the war, had he been in the Senate. The truth, as reported in The New York Times and New Yorker is different. Or at least it was in 2004 and 2006 when he said he did not know how he would have voted because he didn’t have access to the intelligence that the Senators had. It is an interesting twist that now his opposition to the war puts him on stronger footing to oppose it now. Hell, I (and thousands of other Americans) opposed the war but that doesn’t make me qualified to be president (heath insurance and education for everyone!).
What really gets me though is not how many speeches he gives or how much rhetoric he spews but how little work he has done to end this war. He criticizes Senator Clinton for her role but if you look at their records, toe to toe, once both in the lofty Senate, their voting records are nearly identical. See the issue is this, when we invaded Iraq the public supported it – the administration’s case wasn’t all that strong, even former-Congressman Dick Armey said if Al Gore and Bill Clinton had given him the same intel he would have told them to shove it BUT these were friends and you can always trust your friends. People who should have known better questioned it, too. Did you know what Tom Daschle did before he was in the Senate? He was in the military and his specialty was looking at satellite photos. He could make hide nor hare (is that the right phrase?) of what the VP (Cheney) showed him but we had just been attacked – not just 9/11 but anthrax came within 20 feet of the Senate floor and people had died. It looked iffy but what if? That was the mantra that shook the Capitol what if. And it was a scary time. No reason to invade Iraq but it was scary so with that in mind, and the idea that the threat of a stick can work as well as a stick itself, led the Congress to a horrible mistake. And lest you think I am blinded by Hillary’s whatever, she should have read the CIA’s NIE on Iraq. NIE = National Intelligence Estimate. I am sorry. I voted for her in the primary but I do not like Hillary Clinton, my real problem is I know she would be better able to win and deal with Congress. It’s not opinion, it’s reality.
Have you gone to an Obama rally? You should. He reminds me why I care, because he seems to so passionately. I once felt that way but the real problem is I was 1o years old. One person can make a difference and words matter. We should all remember that but we need more than blind optimism here. We need a candidate/president who can fight the good fight and win.
Between ideology and practicality, I hate to do it but I take the latter. If we get some of that we will be able to afford the former. People talk about Hillary dropping out for the ‘sake of the party,’ I say Barack should drop out for the sake of the nation.
