Feingold Called Flip-Flopper on Iraq

[Dr Ron]

From The Democratic Daily--see original post for links:

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2305

It was only a matter of time. Whenever Republicans are on the wrong side of the argument they try to avoid a real discussion of the issue by claiming their opponent has flip-flopped. They must think that Americans are all suffering from short term memory loss if they think they can still pull this off. Media Matters reports on Sean Hannity (who clearly has some type of CNS disorder affecting judgment and honesty) claiming Russ Feingold flip-flopped on his opposition to the Iraq war.

Hannity quoted statements from Feingold as to Saddam being ” exceptionally dangerous and brutal” leaving out Feingold’s statements as to why he opposed use of military force at the time. We’ve seen this all before. How many times have I seen similarly dishonest people, from both the left and right, cherry pick similar statements from John Kerry, such as in his Georgetown speach, ignoring his appeal not to rush to war? Similarly we’ve had the occasional snarky comment from people supporting other candidates arguing that Kerry should not run due to the way he has been characterized. This should demonstrate that if Russ Feingold can be called a flip-flopper on Iraq, they can invent such charges on anyone.

[JohnKleeb]

1. I dont think there isn't a person in that congress who denied

that Saddam was dangerous and brutual, the question was it worth going to war not whether Saddam was a tyrannical asshole or not. The administration's rationale for going to war has changed from the intial he had weapons of mass destruction, to liberate the Iraqis from Saddam, and on and on. I don't deny Saddam was a tyrant, I didn't think it was worth going to war in Iraq over that and that we could have at least tried diplomacy.

[karynnj]

2. This really gives us a little taste of what would have happened had

Kerry come down on the other side. You posted about this on a thread about a month ago -

I'm surprised though that Hannity, rather than going for flip-flop which is really NOT a problem, didn't argue that Feingold said that Saddam was ” exceptionally dangerous and brutal” but didn't care if he stayed in power. Feingold never ever spoke for going to war.

The other odd dynamic is the supoorters of one candidate who consider their candidate past any Iraq problems because he and he alone said the only acceptable words so he (and only he is forgiven). I regret taking the bait on this today, but it's really the same thing the RW does.

[Dr Ron]

3. How do we stop the circular firing squads?

This sort of thing is bound to happen in the primaries, from Gore hitting Dukakis on Willie Horton to Dean distorting Kerry's position on the war. At least the politicians realize that it is all politics. Once the primaries were over, Dean admitted that he and Kerry had essentially the same position on the war and campaigned for Kerry.

Then we have those people posting in GD, Daily Kos, etc who keep these disputes going on forever, only helping the Republican noise machine.

I could see Hannity also making the argument that he didn't care if Saddam stayed in power despite being ”exceptionally dangerous and brutal” but it is refuted easily. If you take that position, then you'd have to also support military action against China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, and lots of other countries. (Well, maybe the dangerous part would exclude some like Cuba).

I've seen exactly the same with Kerry's Georgetown speech. I ran into this not long ago where I bet the person didn't think I'd know the source. They quoted sections critical of Saddam (similar to what Feingold is quoted as saying) and used to to "prove" Kerry supported going to war. No response when I pointed out the secions where Kerry made it clear he did not support going to war, but supported diplomatic action.