By making the vote on IWR all important we are playing into Rove's hands

[DJcairo]

Bush and his advisor Karl Rove along with the Bush flaks in the House and Senate pressured the Congress into considering the Iraq War Resolution in the fall before midterm elections. Everyone understood that they wanted to make the vote a political issue and they did. Dems who supported it were presumed to be weak, Dems who opposed it were pacifists, or worse yet "having an acid flashback to George McGovern days."

In the midterm elections the ‘Yes’ votes of many Dems on IWR made it appear that Democrats had no real alternative to the national security problems of our day. Never mind that the Iraq threat was a hoax or that the successful prosecution of the war is now failing because of a miserable attempt to win the peace.

Now, in our very own Democratic primary campaign, we are told that the vote on IWR is the end all be all. That in order to win a strong following from Democratic primary voters we need a candidate who did not support the IWR. However, it so happens that this year we have 9, maybe 10 candidates and only 2 Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean opposed the IWR. Are we to believe that the other 7 are not worthy of Democratic primary support because of this one issue?

In retrospect, it would be devastating for our country if us Dems ignore all the other advantages/disadvantages of the various candidates and focus only on IWR. We would only be allowing Karl Rove and George Bush to play us all over again.

[Richardo]

1. I'm hip, DJCairo - litmus tests are not the hallmark of analytic thought

Politics is NOT a religion. It is not dogmatic (or shouldn't be).

This should be especially true for the Democratic Party, which ought to strive to provide cover for all of those left behind by the increasingly dogmatic, quasi-religious Republican party.

It's a wide wide spectrum, in many dimensions, and each one of us most likely describes a unique point on it.

[CWebster]

2. Weigh everything,

but what could be more important?

[ProfessorPlum]

3. IWR was certainly a political trap

I think it more fair to say that Dean didn't oppose the IWR (though he like probably many candidates did probably wish it was much more restrictive to Bush - good luck with that in a Republican controlled Congress), but rather the war itself. (I get dibs on being the first one here to mention "Biden-Lugar" :) )

But since everyone, and I mean everyone (including Lieberman) is using the shorthand of "voted for the war" to mean "supported the war", then I think the broader issue becomes not IWR but rather support or non-support for the war. And that is indeed an important distinction and an important issue.

I don't think we need to worry too much about playing into Rove's hands, however, as we are trying to assign blame for the war. The IWR question is how much do we blame other Democrats for the war. You see that anyone who cares about the IWR thinks the war itself sucked - not good news for Herr Karl.

[DJcairo]

6. Yes, and the simple fact is...

...there was very little anti-war fervor in the country at the time. We had just been attacked and wanted to hit back. The administration lied and said that hitting back for 9-11 meant getting Saddam, too. Congress and our elected representatives are a reflection of the people and the poeple wanted Hussein held accountable at the UN. Polls showed Americans were overwhelmingly supportive of such an approach.

Unlike some Democrats on this forum, most people in the United States do not blame Democrats for what has happened in Iraq since last fall. That was and is all the president's responsibility and if you don't believe me go read the constitution.

[ProfessorPlum]

9. Uh, no.

IWR was over a year after 9/11. And the members of Congress should have brains of their own, regardless of what the administration says.

[polpilot]

4. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!........

Dean '04...

[quinnox]

5. You gotta look at the big picture

DU is not representative of the mainstream Dem party. Lieberman is leading in national polls, even now. There are moderates and conservative Dems who like Kerry's war vote in the real world, but hardly any on DU (that post much anyway).

I think there will be a few surprises when the primary votes are cast, and a few bubbles burst among some who think DU's majority opinion reflects the Dem majority opinion.

[damnraddem]

13. Nobody knows now what the primaries will reveal.

But one reason I'm on here is because DU is very-distinguishable from mainstream Dem Party thought.

[Egnever]

31. Well said!

Thank god for DU!

[jos]

15. I think your bubble will burst

National polls are meaningless at this stage. State polls in Iowa and New Hampshire are more indicative of the rise someone like Dean has gotten, primarily because he refused to support the war.

[quinnox]

17. What bubble

I am not a Lieberman supporter.

[jos]

18. The "bubble"

that the majority opinion in DU is not reflective of the majority opinion of Democrats in general. If Dean wins the nomination, that bubble will burst.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Agreed.

I fought against both Afghanistan and Iraq, for all the good it did, but in the grand scheme of things, that war vote is now history and we have to simply find someone who can beat Shrub and do a better job.

"Better job" the easy part.

I understand that there are single-issue voters, and others to whom one issue may severely color their outlook, but the unfortunate reality out there is that no one candidate will agree with each of us on all the issues.

Not to pick on Dean specifically, but his anti-war stance is quite safe, and easy, since he wasn't in Congress to vote on the resolution anyway. But, how about Dean's piss-poor environmental record? His record of appointing rightwing judges? Now flipflopping on Cuba to suck Miami ass?

I'll gladly work and vote for Dean if he gets it, but Dean, like all the others, is not perfect, and his anti-war stance, while I agree with it, is only one part of the mix.

[ProfessorPlum]

10. Dean's anti-this-war stance

may appear "safe" in through the glasses of hindsight, now that everyone else agrees the war is a major clusterf*ck. But at the time it was a huge risk for him - he was immediately written off as "too dovish" and "the next McGovern".

Other than that I agree with you completely - these candidates are all flawed, of course, and one position should not make or break any candidate, if the overall picture is good.

[George_Bonanza]

36. I think it was Dean's only card

Dean had to make a move to distinguish himself. He was a governor from a small state with a low population. His biggest accomplishment was signing the civil unions, which even then, wasn't something he sought out for. He had enough kindness to sign it but not really the determination to seek it out himself. Environmentally, he'd lose to Kerry. Foreign experience, he'd lose to Kerry or Clark. Union support, he'd lose to Gephardt or Kucinich. Women's support, he'd lose to Mosely-Braun. Abortion, pretty much every Dem candidate is similar in their stances. What else is there? He had one card to play, by stirring the rather obvious (IMHO, I'm a foreigner, and even I knew it was something worth taking) anti-Bush crowd and using that as the launchpad platform. It was a risk, no doubt, but one he had to take if he wanted to become a name. That's just my opinion. If he had voiced a more arguing-for-both-sides opinion, he would've gotten lost in the largest Democratic field of presidential candidates since '88.

[UnapologeticLiberal]

8. I totally agree

I think the only reason the president brought the resolution before Congress in the first place was to divide the Democratic Party and back the Democrats in tough races into a corner. We played right into their hands by a) splitting 29-21 on the resolution in the Senate, which made it unclear where we stood as a party, and b) by us getting all up in arms over it. The bottom line is, if the president did not have the votes, he never would have brought the resolution to Congress and would have just gone to war anyway. I highly doubt that if the Senate had voted it down 51-49, or if they had not been able to go to the Senate because that would be the likely outcome, it would have stopped the war from happening. That is why I think how someone voted on that resolution is kind of a phony issue and in presidential candidates, the only question I have is would they have started this war had they been in the White House, and are they likely to start more preemptive wars if they become president?

[CWebster]

11. A candidate who can confront this honestly

and who is not compromised, is in a better position not only to correct the US position but also offers a clean break and a new start.

The Bush administration is crippled by this quagmire---their credibility is shot on national security and we need to be in a position to offer an intelligent alternative- not more mindless bravado and flag-waving.

Rove has the power brokers behind him but his moves are limited.

Check.

[damnraddem]

12. Dem votes on the IWR are important, but not the end-all.

I would be more open to Kerry had he voted 'no.' It IS important. But when the primaries are over, the IWR vote will not be that important to me -- rather what the candidate currently says will be. Kerry is sounding better on Iraq as time goes on, but still hasn't made up for that 'yes' vote.

[Duder]

14. Not making it important plays into Rove's hands, imo.

'Helen Thomas, the First Lady of political journalism and a staunch critic of George Bush's "imperial presidency," accuses the Democratic presidential aspirants of "pussyfooting around the Iraq question" in her column:

At a time when the Democrats need giants to challenge the incumbent president, they are surrounded by "me too" candidates. If it gets down to Lieberman, Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, John Kerry of Massachusetts or Joseph Biden of Delaware, the voters will have scant choice in '04 and may feel they have to stick with the known quantity.

Against this wishy-washy backdrop, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean stands out because of his anti-war message.'

[jos]

16. It was a critical vote

It was not like this matter received little debate. Those of us who opposed the war argued THEN that Bush was lying, that the war was unnecessary, and that the resolution not only gave too much power to the executive but was unconstitutional. Despite that plea, Messrs. Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards and Gephardt voted for it anyway. They failed a vital test of political courage and judgment. It was also symptomatic of the cowardice of the beltway Dems. While that vote would not prevent me from voting for Kerry, Edwards or Gephardt in November, it does prevent me from supporting any of them in the primary.

[genius]

19. Expecially where the stance of some of those who voted for the IWR

was the same as one candidate who wasn't in Congress. Both Dean and Kerry wanted to go in with the U.N. Their positions were almost identical. Dean had the advantage of not being in Congress. Kucinich, on the other hand, was the leader against the war. He's the one who has a right to complain about the vote because he was there and led the opposition. I noticed that he is taking the higher road and not not using this against the others in Congress. You have to look at the overall stances of a candidate on all the issues - not just one vote on one issue.

The Iraq vote isn't coming up again in 05 if Bush is out. Most of the candidates would have a more civilized foreign plan than Bush and it won't be an issue. (Though I am concerned aobut Dean's and Lieberman's pro-Israel stances.) Issues like health care and education will be more important under a Democratic administration and these are the issues we need to focus on.

[DJcairo]

21. Yes, ask yourself, wasn't a Yes vote the best way to compell

Bush to go in front of the UN since it required him to report on dimplomatic progress in his relations with the UN. The IWR in effect supported Powell's position which we know was thwarted within the administration by right wing nut-balls Rumsfeld and elephant eared Wolfi-has no-witz.

[ProfessorPlum]

22. see my post above

most people are actually arguing about support for the war, not IWR. These two issues get conflated by everyone, including the very people who voted for IWR.

A common mistake that everyone seems to be making.

[DJcairo]

23. Kerry has called his vote, a vote to get UN inspectors back in Iraq

[ProfessorPlum]

24. forget about the vote

Kerry also said that he supported the invasion, long after Bush had thrown over the inspectors and was rushing to war.

His support for the war is wrong-headed, and I think you have to view it as a political decision on his part. Not a deal-breaker - it isn't like he could have stopped it on his own. But it was not the most courageous stand he could have taken either. But you don't get to be a Senator for nearly 20 years (or President either, for that matter) without making some decisions based on political considerations, too.

[DJcairo]

25. But last January

as Kerry is fond of repeating, he called on the President not to "rush to war" and to take the time to build the coalition and to let th einspectors do their job. I'm not sure that qualifies as support of the invasion. If there is a Kerry quote from teh start of the war where he says he supports what the President is doing I'd be happy to see it.

[ProfessorPlum]

26. I don't think Kerry would have rushed us to war

which is why I don't think this is a deal-breaker for him.

As for the quote, it is from the first debate among the Democratic candidates, in South Carolina on May 4th.

<quote>
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: . . . And Senator Kerry, the first question goes to you. On March 19th, President Bush ordered General Tommy Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?

SENATOR JOHN KERRY: George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.
</quote>
http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/2004/candidates/debates/dem_sc.asp

On the other hand, I've looked long and hard for other instances in which Kerry either stated support or non-support for this invasion, and I can't find any others. I think he was mostly staying quiet about it while the invasion was happening - again, probably a political decision, and one I can live with if I have to.

[DrFunkenstein]

29. Not How I Remember It

I remember Kerry saying on the eve of war that he was "saddened and angered" by Bush's rush to war - although Saddam's tomfoolery with Presidential palaces and scientist interviews (after screwing around with UNSCOM for years) gave Bush the excuse to go in. He also asked for at least 30 more days of diplomacy.

One week after the war began, Kerry was calling for "regime change" at home.

You can parse that many ways, but I don't see the difficulty with understanding that he supported disarmament but not the rush to war.

[ProfessorPlum]

33. I think that is absolutely true

I think that he abhors what is going on.

But his symbolism is all wrong. He "voted for the war", yet he won't explain what his vote really meant. He "supports the President" - why won't he say he doesn't support this horrible war? He needs to start sending out some different kinds of signals.

I think that he just needs to get over that last step of thinking he needs to appear tough on Saddam, when it turns out there was no reason to be except the emotionalism whipped up by our favorite warmongers.

[jos]

27. So what?

I could put wheels on my hands and feet and try to call myself a bus, but that doesn't make it so. Kerry can call his vote anything he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that it was a vote authorizing war. Everyone at the time understood what the vote meant.

[ProfessorPlum]

28. Everyone now acts as if they know what the vote meant

but it isn't what it really meant, if you know what I mean.

From my blog/newsletter:
-snip-
In the next seven months, as the Democratic party goes through a certain amount of infighting and
decides who is going to be their nominee, you will hear that such and such a candidate “voted for the
Iraq war” over and over again. Lieberman, Gephardt, Edwards, and Kerry all voted Yes on the Iraq
War Resolution which passed last October. The media will say it, the candidates opponents will say it,
and the candidates themselves will probably say it, too.

But it is important to understand what it was that they were actually voting for, so that the vote can be
put into proper perspective. For one thing, the Bush people would like this to mean that criticizing the
Iraq war is now off the table for those candidates. They will say, in mock horror, “How can John Kerry
criticize this administration’s actions in Iraq, when HE VOTED FOR THE WAR?”.

People will also say that these Democrats and other Democrats in Congress voted “to give Bush the
authority to go to war”. This is also not exactly true.

Bush always had the power to get us into a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with or without a blessing from
Congress. As Commander In Chief, he can order the military to go anywhere and do anything, despite
Congress’ formal power to declare war. However, because of the War Powers Act passed after
Vietnam, Congress has the ability to cut funding from a military action after 2-3 months if they do not
support it.

If Congress does not pass an authorization with limits and conditions on the President’s actions, then the
President can wage war and continue to wage war with essentially no restrictions. So the first important
point about the IWR is that it was absolutely crucial that such a resolution be passed, outlining the
Congress’ goals and limiting Bush’s ability to wage war.

The Senate and the House began drafting separate bills. The House, largely Republican controlled,
created a bill which essentially gave Bush free reign to wage war anywhere in the Middle East he
wanted to, with few restrictions on cause. The Senate, more evenly divided, eventually came up with the
Biden-Lugar bill, which would have been a bit more exacting in geographical restriction and burden of
proof than what was actually passed.

Now, the Republicans control Congress. That being the case, it was pretty likely that some authorization
which essentially favored Bush was going to pass, and he was going to be allowed to have his little war.
That was inevitable. So, the only thing the Democrats could do was to make the authorization as
responsible as they could. However, right away some of them started to jump ship.

Gephardt and Lieberman undercut the more responsible Senate position right away by stating that they
would back the much more warmonger-friendly House version. This cut the legs out of the Senate
position considerably. You may remember Gephardt and Lieberman standing shoulder to shoulder next
to Bush at a photo-op last fall, trying to appear “tough on national security”. Good luck with that, guys.

However, the Democrats in the Senate didn’t give up, and kept pushing a compromise bill which still had
a lot of teeth in it. It forced Bush to go to the UN and attempt to win a UN security council vote of
approval. This was the reason Colin Powell had to swallow the last bit of credibility he had and go to the
UN and lie his way through that mendacious presentation of his. The resolution also demanded that all
diplomatic avenues had to be exhausted before we invaded. This was obviously not met, and so
technically, if the Congress wasn’t such a creature of this administration, they could now withdraw
funding from our mission in Iraq. In the end, the IWR did much more good than it did harm, in that it
forced Bush to lie in the face of the world, show that he actually didn’t have any proof before he went to
war, and restricted the geographic constraints of our current actions.

When the compromise was completed and it was pretty clear that it was going to pass, the Democrats
had a choice of whether to vote yes or no on it. This was largely a symbolic gesture, as the IWR was
going to pass anyway.

A No vote might have made it seem like they didn’t want to limit the President’s power to wage war. But
as a symbolic vote, this clearly would have been the better and smarter thing to do. Essentially you
would be voting that Bush was going to screw up Iraq (which has certainly been proven correct in the
aftermath) and based on his prior record that was the right call. But they also knew that Bush would try
to make them look soft on that old debbil Saddam if they did.

Some of the Democrats were actually very active in the fight to make the authorization as responsible as
it was, like Kerry. For Kerry to fight like crazy to limit Bush’s war making power, and then vote NO on
his own bill, would probably have been seen in some kind of unflattering light. But, again, as I said, a
YES vote was a vote predicting that this administration wouldn’t make a hash of the situation, and that
was a very poor prediction indeed.

The good news is that in any case, there were Democrats who were watching out for the principles of
diplomacy, international law, and proof, and they made the best deal they could.

The bad news is that we have to hear about how these candidates “voted for the war” for the next seven
months.
-snip-

apologies in advance for any factual errors this might contain, but it is a summary of "what the vote meant" as best as I can tell.

[DrFunkenstein]

30. Wow, That's One of The Most Fair and Balanced Accounts I've Heard

And I don't mean Fox News, either!

[ProfessorPlum]

32. thanks, Doc

I'm sure there are some factual errors in it, still, but it's going to be hard for me to hear "voted for the war" for the next umpteen months and keep my mouth shut.

[Egnever]

34. Good post!

you wrote this at the timethe vote was taking place or close to that time?

[ProfessorPlum]

35. Naw, last week n/t

.

[knaveree]

37. Hey, that's the smartest thing I've seen

Thanks for that terrific summary.


Bruce

[ProfessorPlum]

38. Thanks, maybe I'll post it

PP

[DrFunkenstein]

20. My Two Cents

Although I have made my peace with the vote, and try to clarify the context that surrounds it, I would never dismiss it as unimportant, and certainly not as something people shouldn't feel passionately about. You all know my stance. I felt this was a no-win vote for Kerry, and he voted the best he felt he could given two lousy options.

I think Kerry's 45-minute floor speech clearly showed he was anguished over the issue, and he did his best to lay out what he would do as President and why he would do it. Obviously, Bush didn't take his advice. If he had, there probably would not have been an invasion in the first place.

There are many people who feel that the vote was unforgivable, and no matter what Kerry would have done differently, his vote ultimately negates all else. I can respect that, but I obviously disagree.

Kerry, Dean, and Kucinich separate themselves from the pack on this issue, because I think they would have all done the right thing. Although I think Clark would have gathered a coalition, I'm not sure if he would have exhausted diplomatic measures. I'm not saying I doubt it, I'm saying I don't know.

That said, I feel that in the end what the candidates will do when they actually become President far outweighs what they would have done hypothetically in Bush's shoes. That is what I base my support upon.

People sometimes doubt that Dean is really my #2 choice. But that is my criteria. I don't go digging for obscure records, or out-of-context quotes. I do my best to only question things that will be truly relevant to his future Presidency.

I also say that Dean is my #2 choice despite the fact that Kucinich is closer to my heart, because I think Dean would be more effective in moving his agenda through Congress. I love Dennis and all that he stands for, all that makes America great, but I have to question how far he could enact his agenda, albeit brave and correct.