wow...amazing how two people can look at the same thing and see two entirely different things...i think we're SAVING the lives of brown people in the Middle East right now...and for years ahead. According to human rights organizations, Saddam is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis...maybe millions. Saddam doesn't leave power without military action. No way, no how. Not with France and China calling the shots.
Max, surely you'll agree, whether you completely support the admin or not, that such a historic, unprecedented war merits serious debate in Congress. Please at least tell me you would have supported a debate back in the fall, rather than -- or at least prior to -- the blind faith resolution passed by Congress. This is what Byrd called for and it's what he damned his party for. I should have put it differently and knew as soon as I hit 'submit reply' someone would pick out that one phrase to dismiss the rest of the post. I should have said it was wild to me that an ex-KKK guy was the only Democrat in the Senate who seemed so deeply concerned about a war on a country full of brown people that he thought it merited a serious debate.
more debate? no..i'll disagree...this was a topic of discussion for over 6 months. more debate was unnecessary...the administration had approval to use force. it was time to crap or get off the pot...you can't leave american soldiers in a built up mode like that forever with no action. it was time to act.
I agree with Bat on this because there's not much DOMESTIC debate before the US took the proposal to the UN. However, It was precisely the same Daschle who took the issue off the table as a misguided campaign strategy back in September. Even for a politican, his original position and 180 degree turn around rate really high on the stupidity meter.
Wild. I agree with you here too sinohero. First time for everything and all... Max: I was talking about those six months, not now. I, for one, am not done with the domestic debate because it never happened (although I certainly don't expect it to happen now -- it's too late). That was, more than anything, the fault of Daschle and Gephardt. It's the not the job of the party supporting the war to instigate a debate about it, so I'm not blaming the GOP for that. What I asked if you agreed about was whether or not this was an important enough issue to warrant a debate in Congress EVER -- not now. Because we never had one. We didn't have six months of debate and we didn't have six minutes of debate. Not in Congress. I don't blame those who are passionately opposed to this war for being frustrated when the people who were supposed to lead the debate lied down. Robert Byrd was the only opposition Senator with any balls, any heart, any soul on this and I assure you Paul Wellstone is rolling over in his grave.
oh..i understand what you're saying..i do agree that it warranted more discussion within that time frame on a domestic level.
I believe that the Dems rolled over because Bush was riding high on a post 9/11 patriotic wave. Anyone who dared to disagree was labeled unpatriotic. The Dems didn't start standing up until it was already too late. They were more worried about their jobs than their actual beliefs.
This war will end well before the election, Bush will enjoy a spike in approval ratings for "winning" the war. (kind of easy to win whenever resistance is this meager) However, the war honeymoon will not last, same as in 92. America will sober up from it's patriotic "all-nighter" and realize the President is incompotent, the economy is in the toilet, and that the social programs needed have been neutered by a Republican congress. It's still possible for Bush to win, perhaps if he found Bin Laden (not very likely), Bush might try to start another mini-war, something to the effect of wag the dog, but that might backfire in the states. It also depends on the candidate who wins out the Democratic primaries. At any rate, the Democratic party has had to move more toward the middle than it likes lately, because after 9-11, there was only moderates and conservaties. As things settle back to normal the party will realign once it's safe to return to the left, and it will gain it's voter base back. As Clinton said at the Black Democratic National Caucus last year, "People would rather be with a strong party that's wrong, than a weak party that is right." In short, don't count your chicken's before they're hatched, 2004 through 2008 will be more contested than you think.
