April 15, 2007

Hillary's Conundrum

Hillary Clinton has had a difficult conundrum facing her ever since the beginning of her presidential campaign. Her vote to authorize the use of force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein in October 2002 has the anti-war base revved up to defeat her in favor of a more capitulationist candidate like Barack Obama or John Edwards. She has tried to alternately defend the vote and claim that she was misled as a defense against the activists within her own party. Last night. however, she ran into someone who refused to buy what she's been selling (via Instapundit):

After fielding many questions ranging from mental health care to veteran affairs at a Town Hall Meeting in Hampton, NH, Senator Hillary Clinton received a heated question about Iraq. A woman who had traveled from New York asked Sen. Clinton if she had read the report given to her in 2002 on intelligence and the Iraq war.

Clinton said she had been briefed on the report, and the woman screamed back, "Did you read it?!" Notably uncomfortable, the Senator repeated that she had been briefed. This exchange went back and forth about three times.

The woman sat down and Clinton explained, "If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority." Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq.

In most cases, legislators do not read through the text of bills on which they vote. They hire staffers to research the bills and to give them advice on the meaning of the material. Many of the lazier ones simply defer their judgment to the leadership of their party. For the most part, this makes a great deal of sense, as it would be difficult to keep up with all of the paperwork that Capitol Hill creates, in legislative sessions, committees, subcommittees, and so on.

However, on a straight up-or-down vote on whether to go to war, one would hope that Senators and Representatives would find it interesting enough to get personally involved. And Hillary's explanation here doesn't even pass the laugh test. She claims that she believed the bill to authorize only the return of inspectors to Iraq. Well, perhaps the title of the bill could have given her a clue: "A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq." The text seems equally clear:

The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to--

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.

Now Hillary defends herself by saying that she never read the bill and, despite the wide coverage of the issue in the press, never knew it would allow Bush to use force against Iraq.

Not even Hillary's defenders can buy that, and it's certainly not convincing anyone else. If she can't figure out the meaning of the plain text of a bill whose title includes "authorize the use of United States Armed Forces", then why should anyone consider her bright enough to run the country? If she's so disinterested in the use of those armed forces that she didn't take the two minutes necessary to read through the brief text of HJ 114, why should anyone put her in the Constitutional role of Commander-in-Chief?

The comments at ABC's Political Radar speak volumes:

Yet another example of the Clinton's inability to answer a direct question...what is "is", etc. Why can't these people answer a direct question? ...

If she thought she was just voting to send inspectors into Iraq, she's far too stupid to be worth my vote. ...

That is like saying but I READ THE FRONT PAGE OF THE CAR MANUAL...it didn't say anything about engines. ...

Mrs. Clinton stated she "was briefed" on the vote. Which would imply she did not read the bill herself. OK. President Bush was briefed on the WMD issue. ...

She voted for War. She thought it would be a cakewalk and she would be percieved as strong. She was wrong.

Hillary is not convincing anyone with this little pas de duh, and what's worse, she's playing into the hands of the activist base by accepting their assumptions about a war she voted to authorize. A straight apology might have worked in the beginning, but it won't at this point. Either she needs to defend the vote honestly, or she needs to flip-flop -- and neither will help her much at this point.

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Comments (26)

Posted by Bill M [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 11:30 AM

Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq.

This sounds like the age-old Clinton response to anything they are embarrassed about -- Lie! This answer can be nothing else but an out and out lie. Her prevaricating on this subject shows, all by itself, why she is unqualified to be President. And just reinforces my opinion of her. She is incompetitent. I hope the Democrats do nominate her. Someone like Fred Thompson would take her apart in a debate.

The woman is not stupid. She knew exactly what she was voting for. For her to deny this now is to lie through her teeth. If we had an unbiased media (cough, cough), she would get this question over and over again everytime she faces the press. It goes directly to character.

One thing I have come to admire about John McCain is that he is standing by his decision. I think one of the questions he was asked a little while ago by one of the dim-bulbs from the MSM points this out well. When asked when he would stop defending his vote that he thought was right and respond to the "will" of the Ameican people as reflected in the polls, he indicated he made the right decision. (I don't have the exact quote.)

But the point is, he had the courage to stand up for his vote and he still considers the decision to be the correct one. But read between the lines of the question. He was being asked to foresake what he thought was right for the politically expedient response, and he declined. And the dim-bulb from the MSM apparently didn't realize that McCain's answer showed political courage (something one would kinda like to have in a President, one would think). And, something definitely lacking in Hillary Clinton.

Bah, Hillary Clinton gets my dander up. She is so transparently unqualified. But she's the MSM darling because she's a Clinton. Whoever the Republicans nominate will have to fight both Hillary (assuming the Dems nominate her) and the totally unbiased MSM.

Posted by rbj [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 12:08 PM

Too bad Imus is off the air, he would have had a field day with this.

Posted by docjim505 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 12:14 PM

... Clinton explained, "If I had known then what I know now, I never would have voted to give this President the authority."

I've heard her make this excuse before, and it is totally lame. In the real world, you don't have a Wayback Machine to let you go back and take another shot when you foul up. I'm sure that FDR would have loved to be able to turn the clock back to December 6, 1941 so he could personally telephone Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short and tell them that the Japs were coming. I'm sure that W would love to be able to turn the clock back to 9-10-01 and tell the FBI to arrest Atta and his gang. It may well be that, if W knew then what he knows now, he'd have never asked for the authority in the first place.

Mature people realize that you can't turn back the clock.

That this sorry excuse is the best that the Hilldabeast can come up with speaks volumes about her lack of character, and how mentally and morally bankrupt she is.

Posted by Bill Faith [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 12:20 PM

Since you mentioned them in back to back posts maybe now's a good time to invite everyone to check out the "worth 2100 words/why isn't this woman smiling" Fred/Hillary minicollage I included in my 2007.04.15 Decision '08/1st Amendment Roundup, which will include a link to this post within a few minutes.

Posted by RBMN [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 12:29 PM

What Sen. Clinton is not saying is that her husband, President Clinton, told her the same thing that President Bush told her about WMD. Bill was her expert. Everybody believed Saddam was hiding WMDs. They also knew that the only people in Iraq that sanctions never touched were Saddam and his family. Saddam's family may've actually done better under sanctions.

Posted by MrBuddwing [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 12:36 PM

docjim505: " I'm sure that W would love to be able to turn the clock back to 9-10-01 and tell the FBI to arrest Atta and his gang."

You don't have to be sure - President Bush said as much in March 2004 in Nashua, NH: "Had I known that the enemy was going to use airplanes to strike America, to attack us, I would have used every resource, every asset, every power of this government to protect the American people."

When I heard those words, I sighed. Oh hell, I thought, if I'd known about 9/11 ahead of time, *I* would have tried to do something to stop it. I mean, who wouldn't?

Posted by patrick neid [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 12:43 PM

while most people with more than double digit IQ's realize what's going on here, her base will buy it hook line and sinker.

i'm sure somewhere in the original document there is a sentence or two that the "is" is standard can be applied to convince folks, who want to be convinced, that inspectors were well on there way.

like her husband, rogue attorney's are/have been, the biggest threat to this country..........

Posted by AnonymousDrivel [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 1:26 PM

Hillary Clinton: Carpetbagging, pandering liar

We've known this for years.

Posted by awbtf [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 1:57 PM

Consider her speech on the vote.

She tries to walk a tightrope and the anti-war crowd isn't buying it. As the least anti-war Dem running for President I have a hard time rooting against her but considering how Saddam and alQaeda got by in the 90s I'd say she deserves some grief.

The best result would be the most antiwar Dem winning the nomination only to have Iraq declared a success by summer of '08 (though I guess we'll get a judgement on that by summer '07).

Posted by DaveR [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 3:36 PM

According to the article, after she came out with that whopper, the audience applauded!

Wow, the guy that had the Kool-Aid franchise for that rally must have made a fortune!

Posted by edcdave [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 4:30 PM

Hillary did not read the legislation.

Does that mean that she did not know then what she knew then?

Posted by Eg [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 5:13 PM

...this President...

What does she mean, "this President?" It's all about Bush, isn't it? Well maybe it's time to talk about, "that President," along with Social Director AGore, Mr. Shady Burglar, Tenet, and the crew of ship of fools - the crew of the Flying Mamarmen. Of whom Hillary is Worst Mate.

Good grief we're in trouble, there's a horrible wind blowing.

Posted by DaveR [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 5:17 PM

I read Hillary's 2002 speech at the link provided by awbtf, and it is pretty clear that one of three things are true:
1. She was lying in her 2002 speech.
2. She was lying in her 2007 speech this weekend.
3. She was lying in both speeches.
There is no possible way she can be telling the truth in both speeches. At minimum, one of the speeches is a lie.
When will the American media start doing the job they claim is their sacred duty, and report on this type of self-evident falsehood? I guess the answer it obvious - when a they want to, and in this case, they do not want to.

Anyone who is thinking about J-school needs to seriously ask themselves whether they want to invest years of hard work only to find themselves a member a profession that has completely compromised its ethical standards and in their place substituted pure hypocrisy.

Posted by wham1000 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 5:19 PM

CQ who usually shows good capacity for reasoning has once more fallen to the demons of ideology and other hormonal dysfunction. By calling Obama and Edwards “capitulationist” he is demeaning more than half of the US population who for good or bad reasons want out of the Iraqi quagmire. He should leave the "my way or the high way” to brain-dead and understand that very few have any understanding of where this adventurism will eventually lead us to.

Posted by Gary Gross [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 5:39 PM

Say what you will about Hillary. One thing that's undeniable is that she's got plenty of chutzpah.

In addition to her Iraq problem, she's now lecturing the Bush administration on cronyism. Hillary lecturing anyone about cronyism is like Al Capone lecturing someone on the value of gun control.

Posted by Karen [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 5:39 PM

Thanks for the link to Hillary's speech. I read the speech. It is very Clintonesque. She made sure she put qualifiers on EVERYTHING she said so she can go back and point to things and say "SEE!!". However, the previous or following paragraph would contradict what she is pointing to today. Her speech left wiggle room and the Clinton's are very good at the wiggle.

Posted by Keemo [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 6:58 PM

Anyone who is thinking about J-school needs to seriously ask themselves whether they want to invest years of hard work only to find themselves a member a profession that has completely compromised its ethical standards and in their place substituted pure hypocrisy.
Posted by DaveR at April 15, 2007 05:17 PM

Bingo!!! Absolutely right Dave...

Wham 1000,

You're just flat out wrong with your statement. 25-30% of the "unhappy with Iraq" Americans, are unhappy for completely different reasons than I suspect you throw the entire package into. The surge has had some success; this is changing the polling data all by itself. I'm in the 25-30% crowd; unhappy because of the lack of commitment to "fight to win" this war; unhappy that GW and cabinet, have consistently allowed politics to get in the way of victory; unhappy that GW didn't level Fallujah while that city held thousands of really evil people; evil people that were allowed to roam free and kill innocent civilians as well as American soldiers before our warriors were allowed to go in and do what they do best. If GW would simply stay out of the way and allow our military to make their own decisions (in real time), this war would be won in a matter of months. I'm all for VICTORY; therefore, my displeasure with the war in Iraq could be turned around quickly...

Posted by Bird of Paradise [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 15, 2007 9:40 PM

"Pas de duh"! LOL

Posted by awbtf [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 12:36 AM

"very few have any understanding of where this adventurism will eventually lead us to."

I imagine the same was said after the American Revolution when Washington gave his first Inaugural Speech:

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered . . . deeply, . . . finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Posted by TokyoTom [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 4:20 AM

more capitulationist candidate like Barack Obama or John Edwards.

Hmm. Ed, by "capitulationist" do you those who would like to end our long and counterproductive occupation of Iraq? By that token, you could blindfold yourself, throw a dart and have an excellent chance of hitting a Republican. Ron Paul and Chuck Hagel come to mind, along with any number of former members of the Administration and "capitulationist" pundits on the right.

But if by capitulation you mean its traditional sense - people who would leave America undefended from terrorist threats - I challenge you to find one, and to consider and explain how, by turning from capturing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to nation-building in Iraq, Republicans have managed to make America (and our allies around the world) safer.

Guys like you are reasons why guys Jim Webb leave the Republican party, and hand control over the Senate to Democrats. Keep up the good work.

Posted by docjim505 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 5:55 AM

TokyoTom wrote (April 16, 2007 04:20 AM):

... I challenge you to find one, and to consider and explain how, by turning from capturing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to nation-building in Iraq, Republicans have managed to make America (and our allies around the world) safer.

O' course, you're asking the impossible because you never know the end of the road not taken. But don't you ever wonder what Zarqawi would be up to these days if he wasn't taking a dirt nap in Iraq? Or what bin Laden and Zawahiri would be doing if they weren't hiding in the moutains of A-stan or Pakistan? Or what Saddam and his murderous offspring might be doing if they weren't dead? We've killed off hundreds (probably thousands) of terrorists in Iraq and A-stan. We've broken up terrorist cells here at home. If we hadn't done these things, maybe some of them would be driving a van full of explosives into a building as they did in '93, or boarding a plane as they did in '01.

You might as well wonder whether FDR was making us "safer" in '43 when he had the mad idea of taking on the nazi juggernaut (hey, they didn't attack Pearl Harbor!).

The terrorists didn't spring up from the ground when Bush was inaugurated, and they won't go back to peacefully molesting camels when he leaves office. That being the case, I think that trying to kill them before they can try to kill us is a pretty good way to make us safer.

Posted by TokyoTom [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 8:06 AM

Docjim, it's now clear that we are in the middle of a civil war in Iraq and are engaged in nation building - and our political decisions there have been much more incompetent than not. There is a misnamed "war of terror" on there because there is essentially no state, so the situation has turned into an armed free-for-all. Of course we have a responsibility to try to create a state, but it may be that the best we can do is to stand aside and make the various sides make some hard decisions about creating trust and making political accommodations. Thinking about where we go from here is NOT capitulation, and an eternal but unwanted presence in Iraq is not a recipe for success of any kind.

No Saddam was not a nice guy, but he was not a threat to the US. Now practically every Muslim in the world hates us, and many of citizens of our Western allies -even here in Tokyo and London - find our behavior inexplicable and detestable.

Yes, we can kill terrorists abroad, but the problem of Western interaction is a thousand times more difficult than simply removing the political and military leadership in Japan or German. We replaced leaders, and a functioning, unified state and nation remained. The situations in Iraq and in dealing with Muslim extremism are entirely diffierent - and in the face military action is neither everywhere possible nor as effective.

There are other avenues, and other priorities. How many trillions do you want to blow through - in in what sense is any of this a "conservative" course of action?

Anyway, this "capitulationist" stuff is really a bunch of shit covering the user's own lack of fortitutude to admit responsibilities for his own mistakes. If there are people who are tired of this war, it's completely understandable, given its many costs and how incompetently its been run to date.

Posted by docjim505 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 10:56 AM

TokyoTom wrote (April 16, 2007 08:06 AM):

... our political decisions there have been much more incompetent than not.

Nice thing about "incompetence": it's up to the individual to define it. Bush and Co. knocked over the Taliban and Saddam in jig time, when the naysayers were wringing their hands over the past failures of the British and Soviets in A-stan and the tens of thousands of casualties we'd take in street fighting in Baghdad. They were wrong, or, to borrow the word, incompetent in their predictions.

Has Bush done everything perfectly? Of course not; nobody ever does. As I and many others have pointed out, the standard that condemns Bush as "incompetent" also condemns Lincoln and FDR, who are well-regarded as two of our greatest wartime presidents.

I submit that Bush could have done what he has done with no more American loses than one Marine with a sprained ankle and the left would still whine about "incompetence".

How about this: some helpful suggestions from the left about how to WIN, instead of nothing but complaints about what hasn't gone perfectly right?

... it's now clear that we are in the middle of a civil war in Iraq and are engaged in nation building...

The left loves the civil war meme; they've been using it since about an hour after Baghdad fell. I must say that it seems rather like a bust: where are the two (or more) opposing armies?

Do many of the Shiia hate many of the Sunnis, and vice versa? Certainly. Are some of them trying to kill each other? Yep. But the Crips and the Bloods hate each other, and their rumbles don't mean that there's a "civil war" in LA. Let's not confuse terrorism with a genuine civil war. There are Sunnis, Shiia, and Kurds in the Iraqi parliament. I note that, during our Civil War, there were no Confederates in the Congress in Washington, and no Federals in the Congress in Richmond.

There is a misnamed "war of terror" on there because there is essentially no state, so the situation has turned into an armed free-for-all.

What would you like to call it? And what are we supposed to do since the terrorist won't oblige us by forming the Terrorist Republic of Terrorismstan that we can bomb with our B-52s and invade with our Marine and airborne divisions? You fight the enemy where he is, not where you'd like him to be.

Of course we have a responsibility to try to create a state, but it may be that the best we can do is to stand aside and make the various sides make some hard decisions about creating trust and making political accommodations.

It strikes me that claiming that Iraq is gripped in a civil war and then claiming that our "standing aside" will make the two sides suddenly kiss and make up is utterly illogical. The left whines that US soldiers are in the middle of the war, keeping the two sides from killing each other. Yet, at the same time, they claim that if we leave, the two sides will stop killing each other.

Riiiiight...

Thinking about where we go from here is NOT capitulation, and an eternal but unwanted presence in Iraq is not a recipe for success of any kind.

You're right: thinking about where we go from here is not capitulation... unless you're thinking about going to Okinawa. The only "plans" we've gotten from the left about where we go from here have been "get out soon" or "get out right now" with the fantasy assumptions that (1) the terrorists will stop murdering people when we leave and (2) the Iraqis, without our help, will then magically form some sort of stable government.

Riiight...

No Saddam was not a nice guy, but he was not a threat to the US. Now practically every Muslim in the world hates us, and many of citizens of our Western allies -even here in Tokyo and London - find our behavior inexplicable and detestable.

1. That Saddam was not a threat to us is 20/20 hindsight. Go tell Bush Classic (who thought he was a threat), Slick Willie (who thought he was a threat) and all the members of Congress who voted to get rid of him during the '90s and this decade.

By the way, was Hitler a threat to us? I mean, it's not like Germany could invade the United States, is it?

2. There were many people around the world who "hated us" during the Cold War. Should we have rolled over and stopped opposing the Soviet Union?

3. I submit that the people in London and Tokyo who find our behavior "inexplicable and detestable" have the luxury of doing so because the US has become the world's policeman. While 9-11 was a direct attack on our country, it didn't do the rest of the world any good; the terrorists are their enemies almost as much as they are our enemies. Some people like to pretend not to realize that.

4. I'm an American, and while I would like for our country to be loved and adored, I'd rather my country be safe... and terrorists be dead.

Yes, we can kill terrorists abroad, but the problem of Western interaction is a thousand times more difficult than simply removing the political and military leadership in Japan or German.

Oh, I don't know. Getting rid of Hitler and Tojo wasn't exactly a cakewalk. We have something like 60 million corpses around the world to prove it.

The situations in Iraq and in dealing with Muslim extremism are entirely diffierent - and in the face military action is neither everywhere possible nor as effective.

Something we agree on. I'm not for invading or bombing every Muslim country, or invading every country where Muslim terrorists may be found. We deal peacefully with Saudi Arabia, for example, even though they are a major sponsor of terrorism. We deal peacefully with Pakistan, even though elements of their government sponsor the Taliban AND they've got nukes. But also I'm not for some pie-in-the-sky belief that "diplomacy" and "dialogue" will keep us safe from the bin Ladens, Zarqawis, and Saddams of the world, either. And I sure as hell don't have any faith in the corrupt and feckless UN.

There are other avenues, and other priorities. How many trillions do you want to blow through - in in what sense is any of this a "conservative" course of action?

Oh, wait. This is the al-Murtha line that we shouldn't be spending the money on the war; we should be spending it on Medicare!

What price do you put on national security?

What price do you think we will ultimately pay if the terrorists see that, as happened in Somalia, we can be run out if only they can inflict a few casualties on us? Where do you want to fight them? Iraq? London? New York City?

Anyway, this "capitulationist" stuff is really a bunch of shit covering the user's own lack of fortitutude to admit responsibilities for his own mistakes. If there are people who are tired of this war, it's completely understandable, given its many costs and how incompetently its been run to date.

No, this "capitulationist stuff" is exactly what it purports to be: a clear recognition that there is a faction in our country that, for whatever reason, wants to lose the war.

Here's a news flash for you: I am tired of the war. I want our troops home. I'm sure that Americans in 1944 felt the same. But neither they nor I spent time carping about how badly things were / are going, or how stupid the president was / is, or how we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place.

I've asked this question of libs before and I'm sorry to say that they've always answered exactly as I expected.

Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?

This is a simple yes / no question. I dread your reply.

Posted by TokyoTom [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 7:35 PM

Docjim, thanks for the response.

Of COURSE I want the US to "win" in Iraq. I`d like to see a peaceful, unified Iraq that allows it citizens to live their lives as they see fit and is not a threat to its neighbors, and we have alot to lose if we leave. But do YOU or even the Bush administration want us to win enough to do the things necessary to win? If not, then we should stanche the losses that are steadily building up.

However, I thought it was a fool`s errand to begin with, and that while there were very good arguments for it, we went in full of "fantasy assumptions" and ill-prepared. Bottom line is that It was a fatal mistake to have insufficient troops to actually maintain order. It`s a shame that this administration undertook the mission so lightly, and embroiled our nation in this without truly laying out our agenda and without actually committing us to the work needed to accomplish it.

It`s more than a little sad that that you assume I must be on the left. In my own mind at least, I`m more conservative than you. I hardly recognize this Republican party, which has outporked the Dems, was asleep at 9/11, knows nothing about our commitments to our allies and has out-done Clinton in the nation-building mission. In foreign policy, these guys have nothing but hammers, and all that they`ve made the world safer for is nails. And at home they`ve been the kids in a candy store.

It may have undercut our ability to achieve success in Iraq, but it`s perfectly understandable that the American people were fed up enough to take away some of the keys on the Republican joyride.

Eisenhower was right about the military and defense. It has become a huge hole that in many ways creates the problems that it is not suited to solve, and leads to bigger government, defense contraction corruption and threats to liberty at home.

Posted by docjim505 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 16, 2007 7:52 PM

TokyoTom,

Thanks for pleasantly surprising me (the old saying about assumptions is true...). When I've asked other libs (or people I assumed were libs) in the past, they hemmed and hawed and couldn't quite bring themselves to say "yes".

If I thought we couldn't win in Iraq, I'd agree that we should cut our losses and get out ASAP. But I think we CAN win in Iraq. More importantly, I think we've got to win. I have faith in the ability of the American soldier to get the job done.

Whether Bush has blown it in the past is something more-or-less civil people can disagree over. Where I get fed up is the syllogism Bush screwed up and Bush is an idiot therefore we've gotta cut 'n' run. Our War for Independence often went poorly; the Civil War went very badly for the yankees for the first couple of years; World War II started out literally as a friggin' disaster for us. But we came through OK in the end. Had we taken the attitude of the modern left during those dark days, it's not unreasonable to assume that the United States wouldn't even exist anymore.

If the dems offered ANY ideas about how to WIN instead of simply bleating that Bush is an idiot and we've gotta get out, I might not feel quite so terrified of giving them a shot. Sadly, the term "loyal opposition" is meaningless to them: they see Iraq simply as a political issue to get votes. They have no idea how to win. Worse, they aren't even interested in winning.

It's too bad.

Sayonara.