January 28, 2004
SPEAKING OF LACKING...:
What the Democrats Lack on Iraq (Fred Hiatt, January 26, 2004, Washington Post)
To appreciate the Democrats' evolving case against the war in Iraq, there is no better place to look than Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's impassioned denunciation. The senator's case, laid out in a recent speech and an article on this page Jan. 18, is comprehensive and angry. It says the war may prove to be "one of the worst blunders in more than two centuries of American foreign policy." It accuses the Bush administration of being dishonest as well as wrong.And, in what it does not contain, it points to a gap in the Democratic message that whoever emerges as presidential nominee eventually will have to fill.
Kennedy's most inflammatory accusations have to do with alleged political motivations for the war or its timing. "Soon Karl Rove joined the public debate, and war with Iraq became all but certain," the senator says. And: "Election-year politics prevail, but they should not have prevailed over foreign policy and national security." And: "There was no imminent threat, no immediate national security imperative and no compelling reason to go to war. . . . But the election timetable was clearly driving the marketing of the product." If Karl Rove -- that is, politics -- drove Iraq policy, then President Bush would merit not only defeat, as Kennedy says, but impeachment. But much of the rest of Kennedy's indictment undercuts the idea of a politically motivated war. For, in his effort to show that the attacks of Sept. 11 were an excuse for war, the senator argues that much of the Bush administration had believed for years that Saddam Hussein had to go.
Say what? If we went to war because that's what the country wanted then the President should be impeached? Is democracy now a High Crime? Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 11:16 AM
Being Liberal now seems to mean, in addition to attacking America's efforts to defend itself and undermining the efforts of tyrannized peoples to be free, the liberal spreading around of scurrilous attacks, unproven claims and hateful innuendo on the president of the US.
Amazing, really.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at January 28, 2004 11:52 AMThe roots of radical Islamism are to be found in the fever swamps of Arab nationalism and the tytrannical regimes produced by that ideology. A concept which appears to be too complicated for the likes of Ted Kennedy and the screwball wing of the Democratic Party to grasp. Nobody likes war but the Bush administration does appear to be scaring the crap out of all the right folks. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at January 28, 2004 12:19 PMJust another step in the Leftist project to criminalize any and all actions which they don't specifically endorse or whose outcome doesn't advance their will to power.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at January 28, 2004 12:28 PMRaoul-
Thats because the left always knows what's best for the dirty masses, no matter what the facts say.
Anyone know where I might find a copy of the 6/18 piece by Kennedy?
Posted by: Genecis at January 28, 2004 4:47 PM"the senator argues that much of the Bush administration had believed for years that Saddam Hussein had to go."
Along with the Clinton Administration and the entire Congress which approved resolutions to that effect in 1998.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at January 28, 2004 5:14 PMTed's father thought the same about WW11(The European theatre at least). He didn't have
too many qualms about the Austrian paper
hanger's domestic policies; and they were
not that differnent in kind, not degree to
that practiced in Boston clubs (He was over
heard saying this to the German ambassador to
the UK around 1939.
Kennedy's Senator-for-Life-Plus-10-Years position in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts allows him to go off on tirades like this -- or like the one in the Senate hearing with David Key today -- secure in the knowledge that he'll never be punished for his irresponsability. In fact, it's probably why the other Senate Democrats let him do this, because no one else within their party in the Senate this side of Robert "I'm Losin' It" Byrd is as secure.
Since Kennedy has no hope of ever moving up from his current job, he's free to say the things in public other Democrats will only utter behind closed doors. Annoying New York Congresswman Bella Abzug issued similar nutty statements about impeaching Gerald Ford prior to her run for the U.S. Senate in 1976, and stuff like that helped Daniel P. Moynihan score an upset victory in the primaries. None of the other Senate Democrats want to risk having statements like that or like Teddy's come back to haunt them.
Posted by: John at January 28, 2004 6:52 PMIf Bush is a war-monger he has at any rate spilled the blood of our enemies not of our own countrymen -- or countrywomen, to be more exact. Mr. Kennedy, need I say more than "Chappaquiddick"?
Posted by: Josh Silverman at January 29, 2004 8:46 PM