Obama, busted again!

Foresight, eh?

October 2, 2002

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3056283.ece

http://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.php

 

As did millions of people around the world!

 

If I had run for senate I probably would've especially in 2004 for when for Democrats anti-war sentiment was already very high. Anyway that still doesn't address that Obama has said he doesn't know how he would've voted if he had been in the US Senate in 2002 indicating the possibility he might've voted for the resolution anyway. So while I don't doubt that Obama fervently disagrees with the war even he recognizes that his opposition can't be equated to the situation taht those who were actually in the US senate faced.

 

actually, hillary has said that bush isnt being hawkish enough on iran.

compounded w/ the fact that she will not commit to having the troops out of iraq by 2013.

and the defense contractors are donating the most to her campaign.

she is a warmonger, pure and simple.

if you want to continue the bush administrations policy of endless war than hillary or mccain are your girls! i dont like obama, but at least he is calling for an end to iraq in his first term, which is what the majority of americans want.

 

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http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E0DA1430F931A15750C0A9619C8B63

While Mr. Obama's stances on the war are generally of a piece, he has been more outspoken on some aspects than others. In 2002, in the weeks before and after the Senate voted on the war resolution, Mr. Obama, then a state senator, took a strong antiwar line, popular in his liberal Chicago district, and repeatedly said President Bush ''has not made his case for going into Iraq.''

When it came to the sort of hypothetical questions politicians dislike, like whether he would have voted for the resolution, Mr. Obama was more reserved. ''I think I would have agreed with our senior Senator Dick Durbin and voted nay,'' he said in November 2002. ''What I would have been concerned about was a carte blanche to the administration for a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes that I'm not sure sets a good precedent.''

At that time, Mr. Obama said he had based his judgments on following the debate in Washington and on his gut. He did not have access, of course, to the intelligence reports that were provided to senators voting on the resolution. He brought up that fact two years later, in the 2004 presidential race, as he made clear that while he opposed the war, senators who voted for it were acting on other information.

Indeed, reporters asked Mr. Obama about the Democratic presidential ticket throughout the 2004 campaign, because Senators John Kerry and John Edwards had both voted for the Iraq war resolution. In an interview with The New York Times in July 2004, he declined to criticize Mr. Kerry or Mr. Edwards over the Iraq vote, but also said that he would not have voted as they had based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to the Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''



Context...

 

And furthermore, and I think even more importantly is that in the recent vote on Iran, Hillary voted again to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. By this time everyone knows that his administration does not deserve that kind of benefit of the doubt.

It's ridiculous. It would be one thing to try and gloss over Hillary's vote for the war if she'd

1. Admitted it was a mistake to vote that way
2. Not voted to give Bush the benefit of the doubt again, this time dealing with Iran.

I'm sorry but that nullifies any kind of excuse for her Iraq vote. She showed poor judgement then, and has shown that she hasn't learned from her error.

 

why would she doubt bush on iran? she says bush isnt being aggressive enough towards them.

 

There are a couple of key points in your post that are relavent.

That shows that Obama was at no political risk to his stance and was following with what his district believed in.

Again he acknowledges that he didn't have the same info and while he opposed the war as noted his decision wasn't under the same context as those who actually voted for it.

Your own quotes show that Obama admits to not being in a position to make the call and that given a different situation he admits he might've made a different one. Further your own quote shows that Obama's opposition actually had a direct political benefit to him as his district strongly opposed the war.

 

As Obama has pointed out we weren't privy to the info. If you are talking about woulda, coulda, shoulda even Obama recognizes that the situation might be different if we were sitting in the senate.

My own point is while I disagree with Hillary's vote I have to admit I'm not fully in position to judge it and if I were to be running against her now it would be disenginous of me to argue that I'm right and she's wrong when I've admitted to not knowing how I would've voted had I actually been in position to vote for it.

 

way to take that out of context, he was trying not to criticize kerry while he was running for president, and you know that

 

Again, you're removing the context of the 2004 presidential race and the fact that Kerry and Edwards had voted for the resolution...

'I think I would have agreed with our senior Senator Dick Durbin and voted nay,'' he said in November 2002. ''What I would have been concerned about was a carte blanche to the administration for a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes that I'm not sure sets a good precedent.''

It's pretty clear. I even posted a video of him saying it. Trying to spin his refusal to attack Kerry and Edwards is a bit much.

Again, he opposed the war when he began his statewide run for the nomination and the senate.

 

It also seems disenginous to pretend like she only voted that way based on misinformation she was fed, when afterward she wouldn't call her vote a mistake.

Then not only that she goes ahead and votes to give Bush the benefit of the doubt with Iran. Seriously... this is way more important than the initial Iraq vote.

It isn't more important in immediate consequences, but it is in judgement.

 

Hum...what was the title of the 2002 congressional Iraq resolution?

oh yes...

"Joint Resolution to Authorize the use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq."

She knew what she was voting for. That's why so many people who supported her are so mad at her now.

 

I'm actually on Hillary's side on this issue - I'm not nearly as anti-Iraq-war as others, and don't have any problem with her vote on it. I disagree with how Bush went about it, but if you're going to make threats to Iraq, it has to be done through a singular voice with the authority to back it up. Otherwise, Iraq has no reason to listen if he knows the US can't actually attack him without another vote.

That said, if you're Obama, you can legitimately argue that you were prescient on how the war would play out and that you would not have gone to war, and thus you believe the war to be a mistake. Hillary's had a mixed history of support and opposition to the war, and wasn't particularly against it even when it first happened. So that's an issue of contrast you can make with her. Here's what she said in December 2003:


I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote. I have had many disputes and disagreements with the administration over how that authority has been used, but I stand by the vote to provide the authority because I think it was a necessary step in order to maximize the outcome that did occur in the Security Council with the unanimous vote to send in inspectors. And I also knew that our military forces would be successful. But what we did not appreciate fully and what the administration was unprepared for was what would happen the day after.

So, like me, her problem wasn't necessarily the idea of going to war - but how the admin handled the aftermath. That's where there is a big distinction between the two of them, and it's a reasonable point for Obama to suggest his judgment beforehand that the war would be a mess - whereas she didn't realize that until after - is a distinct difference between the two of them.