obama, the underhanded sly one.

[flordehinojos]

isn't it a bit disengenuous and underhanded of obama to say, "my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in iraq, because i didn't" ... when he wasn't even in the senate to cast a vote for or against the war. and given his penchant for letting pragmatics speak for him rather than principle, had he been in the senate, what would have been the political pragmatic peg on which he would have cast his vote.

i seriously doubt that he would have surfed the wave of principle on its peak.

i strongly believe that he would have surfed down the wave of fear like so many others did in casting their vote on the iraq invasion.

[Mass]

1. Does it matter? McCain will not be able to say he voted for the war. He did not.

We can discuss for years what he would have done (hypothetical). The fact is that HE DID NOT VOTE FOR THE WAR.

[flordehinojos]

5. then ...

he should say I DID NOT VOTE FOR THE WAR BECAUSE I DID NOT HAVE A VOTE TO CAST. that would make him honest in what he says. however, he has been very disengenuous in the way that he says it.

[pampango]

14. And Hillary could say "I voted for the war, not because I believed Bush's lies,

but because I wanted to run for president one day. Kerry, Edwards, Dodd and Biden did the same thing."

At the time of the IWR Obama publicly opposed it. He says he would have voted against it. You may THINK he would have voted for it if he was in the Senate and you MAY be right, we will NEVER know for sure.

I do find it to be a weak defense to essentially say "Sure my candidate screwed up with that vote, but your candidate PROBABLY would have done the same if he were in the same situation."

[flordehinojos]

18. enlighten me. did hillary vote for the invasion/occupation of iraq or did she vote to give time to

the weapons inspectors to do their job and for bush to return to congress to ask for authorization to invade iraq if it was proven that SH had WMDs?

[pampango]

19. I understand the spin. Each campaign does it.

Hillary voted for the IWR because she had presidential ambitions and didn't want to be labeled as "soft on defense and terror" by Republicans. Kerry, Edwards, Dodd and Biden all did the same thing for the same reason.

Don't get me wrong. Politically it was the smart thing to do. The Republicans do still throw that charge around, as Romney evidenced yesterday in his withdrawal speech.

If any of our senators who voted for the IWR really thought that they were only providing Bush a lever to use against Saddam to help the weapons inspectors do their job, they would have been calling for impeachment long and loud the second Bush misused the IWR to proceed with an illegal invasion. If any of our subsequent presidential aspirants did that, please enlighten me.

They all knew that the first Gulf War went well militarily and quickly saw that this war was going well militarily at the outset. They didn't want to be naysayers on a successful and popular war (at the time). Only as the occupation and Bush's incompetence became issues did they start with the political contortions.

Even now, there are Hillary supporters who post at DU that she will be more successful against McCain precisely because she can point to her IWR vote as evidence that she is strong on the use of the military and not some weak-kneed liberal Democrat. They worry that Obama's antiwar stance, which many of them believe is a "fairy tale", will nonetheless be used against him by McCain and the RW attack machine.

[SteppingRazor]

2. But what you believe he may or may not have done doesn't matter.

What matters is that Obama can unequivocally state, "I was against this war before it started." Being able to say that will mean a lot in a general election campaign against John "Let's keep troops in Iraq for a million years" McCain.

[ginnyinWI]

3. But he was in politics at the time.

He did something politically risky by opposing the war at that time. He was looking to run for the U.S. Senate and knew it would be on his record, no matter how the Iraq invasion turned out.

[flordehinojos]

10. then he should truthfully say, he opposed the war even at a time when he was looking to run for the

senate even when he thought it might be politically risky for him to do so. that would keep him honest.

[ginnyinWI]

15. his wife says it in her stump speech

That's where I learned about it for the first time. I've also seen it written about by others.

[flordehinojos]

17. he should be the one saying ... she is just cleaning up for him.

that does not vogue well for the man who wants to be president ... sort of like poppy bush cleaning up after his son or the press cleaning up after the bush boy.

[Uncle Sinister]

4. What Obama REALLY said.

"I don't know how I would have voted" Exact quote
"There is not much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage" Exact quote

[AndyA]

6. Barack's just "stretching the truth a little bit."

Apparently that's not a problem for him.

Reminds me of George Bush.

The error ends January 2009. Let's not start another one right behind it.

[flordehinojos]

8. i concur 100% with what you say.

[sandnsea]

7. He is going to run on the "mindset" that got us into the war

So your nitpicking rationalizations don't matter anyway.

[flordehinojos]

9. my rationalizations? really. i am just pointing to some manipulation of the truth by the obama guy.

but ... rationalizations or truth telling ... they seem to have gotten under your skin.

and the part about "it doesn't matter anyway" ... i thought that politics and voting was really about things that do matter.

twisting the truth matters.

[HeraldSquare212]

11. He represented Chicago, which was considered a target, and still stood up and denounced the war.

He could have just kept his mouth shut, because he didn't have to vote - but he spoke out. If he represented Montana it might not be so meaningful, but he represented a city that itself was on edge about the potential for an attack on, say, the Sears Tower. That took guts on his part.

[flordehinojos]

12. he, however, does not need to distort the truth now. why is he just saying,

"my opponent will not be able to say that I voted for the war in iraq, because i didn't" when the whole truth is that he did not vote for the war in iraq because he was not part of the senators who voted yay or nay on the iraq war. he is not keeping himself honest...because the implication of what he says (for people who don't much follow politics) is that he was there and he voted no.

[DS1]

13. what's that scraping sound?

[Josiah1982]

16. Obama didn't vote. like many times in his history when he just doesn't vote.

or he votes 'present'. Not the same thing as voting 'against' the war. He didn't do that. Besides he said he didn't know howd hed vote if he was in the seante at the time