I’m watching Countdown right now, and Keith and Howard Fineman are going on against Hillary and Bill for defense of her 2002 vote authorizing force against Iraq. It’s used a lot and as disappointed as I am with that vote, we need to really sit back for a moment and examine the situation fairly.
I’m no Hillary bumper. I doubt I’ll vote for her and she drives me nuts with the negative ads, but this is going crazy.
Now then, the aftermath of 9/11 certainly had a huge effect on the vote for Iraq. It wasn’t that we necessarily thought they were involved, but rather that they were a threat as well, and indeed a far larger one. The constant conflation of Iraq and Al Qaeda created a seed in many minds not that we had to invade Iraq as revenge for 9/11 (we got Afghanistan for that one), but instead we had to go in to prevent another one.
Keep in mind also that the vote was, purportedly, to authorize force in last resort. It was to show unity and under the pretense that force would only be used if it absolutely had to be. Was it? No, but voting because you think the president is lying about his motives is a poor way of doing things, especially that early in his presidency before we knew he was full of shit.
Imagine you’re in the Senate in 2002. In the past year, a horrific attack was launched on the United States the likes of which we had never seen. The president is telling you that another country, which may have ties to those who attacked us, is an even greater threat than what we’ve seen. You have a bill in front of you to either authorize or deny the use of force.
It’s a prisoner’s dilemma. You have to decide which vote is safer. Could you afford to assume that you’re getting false information, that the president is lying?
I respect Kucinich’s criticism of Clinton, because he voted. Obama didn’t. It’s far easier to make that comment when you in fact did not make that vote. We don’t know what Obama would have done in that situation. For all we know he might have done the same. Playing armchair Senator is easy when you didn’t have to make the decision.
Obama has a lot to take Clinton to task over, but that Iraq vote is difficult to accept. It wasn’t for some time that we learned what the Administration knew was true and what was false, how they lied and how they manipulated emotions and fears. I can’t fault someone for responding in the way they did, even if I’m incredibly disappointed with the lack of inquiry and dissenting voices.
