By David Epstein
Once again, the Democrats have formed a firing squad and lined up in a circle. I refer to the current debate on the Iraq war vote, and in particular, whether Hillary's vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq will be a major detriment to her campaign. She has come under such attacks from her own party on this, that it's easy to lose sight of the real culprit. I'll give you a hint -- he still lives in DC, and has a large house not too far from where Congress does business.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: no Democrat should have anything to fear from their war vote, whichever way they went. To begin with -- and back to my favorite subject -- this was not a vote for war, it was a vote to delegate. It gave the president the option of going to war under certain conditions, but it left the decision up to him. For those who remember the ancient history of four years ago, a lot of the debate at the time said that the best way to avoid war was to vote for the authorization bill, since that would send a message that we were serious about fighting. Then, the theory went, Saddam would come to the bargaining table.
Second, and even more to the point, this was a vote taken at a time when it was assumed that Saddam had WMD's. That is, it was taken under false pretenses. It was still a relatively close call -- a majority of Democrats voted against it -- but it would never have come close to passing if the truth about Saddam's failed weapons program had been known.
This is the central point of the war vote -- that it was a unique point in our nation's history when Congress authorized a major military conflict on the basis of false (and falsified) information. If the Democrats are going to retake the White House, they have to keep reminding themselves of this central fact.
And there's still time -- Bush is still in office. All too soon he will be an ex-president intent on burnishing his image for history and under absolutely no compulsion to answer questions about his actions in office. Time is running out to get the story straight, and it will only happen if the Democrats can resist, if only for a short time, their impulse to shoot each other rather than the other guys
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