New Sport at DU: Shoot the Democratic Party in the Foot Before the General Election:"Democrat's War"

[McCamy Taylor]

Exhibit A: This thread which exploits an article soon to be published with the outrageous title Hillary’s War .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4618145

Ever since Karl Rove declared to the world (and Republicans hurried to get in line with the Big Lie) that Senate Democrats were really responsible for the 2003 invasion of Iraq by forcing the war resolution vote before they left session in the fall of 2002 (for political purposes), the Republican Party and its minions in the corporate media have been working hard to portray the War in Iraq as a Democratic War . On TV, we have seen Chris “Tweety” Matthews, good little General Electric employee and John McCain water carrier discuss Hillary Clinton’s personal culpability, while muttering the phrase “Democratic War”, presumably for subliminal effect. We have seen Freepers, disguised as Obama posters, accusing Hillary of single handedly planning the war, launching the ships, feeding W. the lies and planting the IEDs. We have even seen real Democrats get behind Karl Rove and claim that this is now a Democratic War , because they do not have the 60 Senate votes necessary to overcome a filibuster or presidential veto and they do not trust Bush to protect the troops should they defund the war. Given the Madness of King George, should they call a showdown over Iraq by withholding money, it is quite possible that he would keep troops on the ground and simply cut off supplies, gambling that by the time the first soldiers began to fall, Congress would have bowed to public pressure to supply funds, which can be done more readily than troops can be withdrawn.

It is so easy to complain, and so hard to actually run a country. Maybe if some of the people who bitch and moan for a living could change positions with the people who have to juggle the needs of constituents and foreign allies, they might realize that there are often no easy answers. For instance, if this were 2002, one year after 9/11, and you were the Senator from New York, where the World Trade Center had been targeted twice and taken out just one year before, and some one was telling your constituents that they were going to be nuked tomorrow, and everyone knew that NYC was terrorists favorite place in the US to attack, you would be getting an earful from your voters. I don’t even have to be clairvoyant to know that. And if you were the maternal, protective type like Hillary Clinton, you would do everything you could to keep them safe----and think about your own political future later.

Everyone assumes that Hillary’s vote in 2002 was about positioning herself for a presidential run. However, think about how Chuck Schumer voted. He is as smart as a whip. It would be hard to pull anything over on him. And he is not running for president. However, he too represents New York.

The photos posted in the thread I link above of all the anti-war protesters are a cute touch. Here is a group that protested WWII:

http://www.catholicworker.org/dorothyday/ddbiographytext.cfm?Number=3

Resistance to Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement intensified as the nation went to war. For Dorothy it was a time of deepening, a necessary time of consolidation of her Catholic faith and of the ideas that fueled the Catholic Worker Movement. She was one of the few Catholic voices opposing World War II, as she had all previous wars, and not all those in the movement agreed with Dorothy's total pacifism. Many houses closed, some because the men who ran them were drafted. The bread lines shortened because of full employment for the war effort.

I post this to show that there will always be left wingers who will oppose every war. Sometimes they will get lucky and it will turn out that the war they got in on the ground floor opposing was crafted from lies. That makes them prophets. Other times, the people fighting those wars will herd all the Jews they can get their hands on into concentration camps and try to kill them. That makes the pacifists look like dangerous lunatics.

Google “Hillary’s War” and you get over 7000 hits. People who despise Hillary are probably happy. Google “Democratic War in Iraq” and you get almost 4000 hits, most of them recent, many from DU. That should make no one happy, except all the Republicans getting in line behind John McCain.

John McCain’s biggest weakness is his loyalty to Bush and his well known “100 years of war” statement. The only way he can defeat the Democrats this fall is by convincing the American public that the war which Bush-Cheney-Rice-Powell lied about and which Congressional Dems tried to end as soon as they got a majority but which Congressional Republicans supported with filibusters is a Democratic War . The twisted reasoning behind this Big Lie is that Republicans always want to start wars (sometimes for no reason) and God or the Founders invented the two party system so that Democrats could serve as a check on their hawkish brothers to prevent them from rushing into war. If the nation went into an unnecessary war, it is because Democrats took their eyes off the ball . Republicans were just doing their job. Think Good World’s Cop, Bad World’s Cop.

And what happens when this becomes a Democratic War? Then McCain says “I’m a military man. I know how to end it.”

Every time partisan politicos at DU (or some Freeper posing as a partisan politico) claim that this is Hillary’s War or Edward’s War or any other Democrat’s War, they are shooting the Democratic Party in the foot. The Clintons inevitably counter that Obama’s position is not so different from Hillary’s, given their near identical voting records on funding, which means another round of bird shot between the toes. Then someone else brings up Congress and says the war is their fault, for not impeaching Bush and Cheney even though they do not have a two thirds majority---

There is one thing that everyone needs to remember at all times, no matter what else they are doing. There are three correct names for the War in Iraq:

Bush/Cheney War

Neo-Con War

Republican War

Anything else is inappropriate and needs to be corrected immediately no matter what else is going on.

[Bread and Circus]

1. Ok, so let me ask, why did speak in support of and vote for:

Bush/Cheney War

Neo-Con War

Republican War

:shrug:

Because that's what I can't figure out.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. Because that was 2002, this is 2008, no one has invented a time machine yet.

And no, I am not voting for Hillary. But I will vote Democratic in the general, and I expect the Democrat to have a fighting chance and not be burdened with a bunch of baggage his (or her) own party saddled us with.

Note to every one: Negative campaigning turns people off. Positive campaigning turns people on. Inspirational posts are what will convince people to vote for your candidate. Get to work honing your inspirational writing skills.

[Bread and Circus]

4. It was fairly clear to millions of people in 2002 that what Bush had in

store was a disaster.

Like many Senators, Clinton thought it was going to be a cakewalk and didn't want to be on the "wrong" side of an easily won war. But many of us knew better.

This is not Monday morning quarterback stuff. Millions throughout the world were in the streets.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. That is not sound logic.. Millions of people believe in aliens, too. And magic.

Here is a wiki entry that chronicles the rise and fall of public opinion about the invasion of Iraq.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_popular_opinion_on_invasion_of_Iraq

Hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. thought it was a good idea.

Billions of people around the world did not take to the street to protest it.

Neither of these facts makes what happened right, but the fact that millions did not like it at the time does not make it wrong either. Millions of Germans went along with the Final Solution and that did not make it right.

The Iraq War is right or wrong based upon its own merits. That is why I was scornful of the posters use of the war protest photos as an argument. If Hillary is going to vote on abortion legislation, should she have her people count up the number of NARAL and the number of Right to Lifers in the streets and base her vote on who has the bigger turn out? Does that give the KKK more votes for better theater (those burning crosses sure are flashy)? Should Terri Shiavo have been forced to perpetual life in death, because a bunch of people carried signs that said so?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. OMG what a looney answer - millions were deluded yet they were right?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

what a lame attempt to try to shut people up about Hillary's horrible vote for the Iraq war.

BULL SHIT!

[bagrman]

17. What a Crock.!

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Most Congressional Democrats Voted Against War

Clinton voted to attack.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. True.

21 of 50 in the Senate.
126 of 208 in the House.

147 of 258. Roughly 57%.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

13. clearly they were "clairevoyant"

:rofl:

[ElsewheresDaughter]

26. link please?

[chascarrillo]

5. Have you had a chance to look at your avatar recently?

Please, consider your choice of representations before slandering pacifists like Dorothy Day. kthxbai.

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Sorry, that is not my opinion. I am talking about popular perceptions.

You will find many people who will find a pacifist who is unwilling to fight in defense of the defenseless unacceptable in this country.

Think of the difference between Kosovo and Iraq. Or the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraq. The same people who marched in the streets against Iraq were mostly for overthrowing the Taliban.

America is not a pacifist nation.

[hay rick]

8. clairvoyant here

I appreciate your good intentions in trying to defuse the intramural blame game on the war. In the end, rolling in the mud is unlikely to benefit any of the participants. Fortunately, John McCain will own the war, whoever he faces. The real challenge will be getting unbiased coverage of the situation in the Middle East.

I am sympathetic to Hillary. As the Senator from NY she was duty-bound to take claims of "imminence" of threats more seriously than most. That doesn't necessarily put her in the same camp as Cheney and the 1% doctrine people.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

10. she was in even better position to speak out against a clearly wrong war

I mean, if you live in New York, and were "attacked" by a plane flown by Saudi Arabians (according to the FBI list), then why would you want to attack the WRONG country?

[hay rick]

15. WRONG country?

Dude, you're forgetting about the whole Saddam-Al Qaeda connection. Seriously, the point is that reasonable, well-intentioned people can differ. I opposed the invasion before it started, but if they had found nukes I would have been wrong.

Of course, I'm clairvoyant, so I couldn't possibly be wrong. Thank you, Jesus!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. Hillary and any dem voting for the war SHOT the democratic party

The democratic party hasn't been the same since Bill's blow jobs and
his Big State strategy of losing congress.

The spinelessness and stupidity of the democratic party (those in office at the time)
was the straw that broke the camels back.

[ErnestoG]

14. EXACTLY.

[4themind]

16. delete-nt

[bagrman]

18. Okay You think you have an excuse for the war vote. Please explain her

vote for the Credit Card law that passed. Your girl is her own worst enemy, no one has to make up anything. She has so much baggage that it will turn off so many people when the Rupuke machine starts a cranking, that all of the new voters that aren't here because of her, will just tune out and pass all together,

[Phred42]

19. Sorry Bosco - Dems DO NOT get a pass

After the showing of "Democrats" in the past 8-9 years........Please.

Yeah, I'll hold my nose and vote for Dem in the General but only because this country WILL NOT survive, as a Democracy, with ANY further republican control of OUR Government. NOT because most of the Dem or even the Democratic Party are on the side of "We The People". A large portion of those CALLING themselves Democrats these days are really moderate republicans or apolitical greedy bastards - They lied to get elected in their districts. Hello!

One thing at a time but the next step in all of this has to be, that this country will not survive with any CONSERVATIVE control of our government and that INCLUDES DLC & BLUE DOG Democrats and other Corporatists in the Democratic Party. Look at their voting records. These swine must be our next targets beginning in 2010 - after the Dems get the White House and REAL majorities in the Senate and House

Then we MUST get the Corporations and Oligarchy itself back under our collective thumbs. Of Course that assume we actually want to keep a Democracy.

[McCamy Taylor]

20. United we stand, divided we fall...

The Democratic Party will only triumph this fall if we recognize that the enemy consists of people like David Rockefeller, corporations like Exxons, political families like Bush, the corporate media which uses its journalists to spread propaganda that promotes the financial self interests of its parent companies, AT&T which is engaged in an active conspiracy to blackmail prominent Americans including our very own elected Democratic officials who know that their Democratic constituencies would turn on them like a pack of hungry hyenas out for blood if Karl Rove released any secrets learned via domestic spying in the current "We hate our own Democrats more than we hate the Republicans" environment.

And the blackmail info could be something as innocuous as someone's wife got a tip from a stock broker to sell based upon (for the stockbroker) insider info. Shades of Martha Stewart.

Guys, you think you have been afraid these last few years? Who got anthrax mailings? Who has had their laptops stolen? Who knows that they could be the victim of a staged "Terra" attack by the NSA and no one would be the wiser? Hell, I have been expecting Cheney to resign to his bunker and take out Congress any day.

Re: the Democrats votes on the war, you guys are doing just what I said the RNC propagandistas want the country to do. You give the GOP a free pass, because "they were doing what Republicans are supposed to do" and you blame the 50% of the Democrats that voted yes.

I look at the same vote and I see something entirely different.

I see Democratic Congressmembers who each made up his or her own mind based upon the evidence and each of whom cast a vote based upon his or her own judgment. The even nature of the split reveals how well Bush-Cheney did in making their case before Congress and the elevated state of fear that even Congress was under at the time.

I see Republican Congressmembers who did not even bother looking at the evidence. They cast their vote authorizing war based upon the orders of higher ups in their party (with a few notable exceptions.

Right there that tells you all you need to know about which Party is better able to run this country.

If you are going to call this war a Congressional War, then you can not call it "Hillary's War." The nation did not look to her to decide whether to do for it. You have to call it after All the Congresspeople who voted for it. And that makes it a Congressional War And since the majority of the American People were for it (even though McClatchy owned papers like my own Fort Worth Star Telegram ran stories every day casting doubts on the administration's stories that people could have read--I read them) that makes it America's War since the American People had an obligation to read the news and keep informed and question their leaders---and they failed.

Feel like running a series of DU posts about America's war calling the majority of Americans unfit to run the country, because they supported the Iraq War?

[think4yourself]

21. OK - Then explain Hillary's Kyl/Lieberman vote

Or even her not doing the honorable thing and apologizing for the Iraq vote. John Edwards did. And we all respect him for that. She was trying to appear "tough on terrorism" when she was really just being "predictable at campaigning for 2008". And I have no respect for her attempts at being "Hawkish".

[McCamy Taylor]

23. OK-Then explain Obama's macho posturing when he threatened to invade Pakistan HERE

Looks like everyone is doing it. Shall I go post a thread about how Obama made this threat last fall and everyone called him irresponsible? No, I don't think I will, because I am not in the business of shooting my party in the foot. Just want to warn you that everyone has skeletons in their closet. Invading a country for harboring Muslim extremists when said Muslim extremist sympathesing military has nukes is so monumentally stupid that it boggles the mind. I like to chalk that remark of Obama's up to inexperience.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101233.html

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country's military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, "The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

snip

"It is dangerous and irresponsible to leave even the impression the United States would needlessly and publicly provoke a nuclear power," Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) said in a statement.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, in a telephone interview, said that Obama's threat, if acted upon, could inflame the entire Muslim world. "My international experience tells me that we should address this issue with tough diplomacy first with Musharraf and then leave the military option as a last resort," he said.

Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) said in a statement that he would first apply "maximum diplomatic and economic pressure on states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia" to do their utmost to combat the spread of terrorism. He also challenged both Obama and Clinton to block a proposed U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called Obama's threat misguided. "The way to deal with it is not to announce it, but to do it," Biden said at the National Press Club. "The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we are about to violate their sovereignty."

Maybe you want to turn the issue against Hillary and complain that she was the only Democratic front runner who did not issue a stinging rebuke against Obama's stance? That would be pretty much how the anti-Hillary people work.

[Hill_YesWeWill]

22. so, so true!

it got better around last Tuesday, but it's been getting progressively worse since

[f the letter]

24. When we succeed in stopping the war, then it will be 'their war'

Until then, we are not doing anything of use about it. Just because half of us in Congress voted no doesn't mean that we're doing anything about the war. The Democratic leaders are so complacent about it and treat an ongoing, illegal, unaffordable, immoral war as a fait accomplis, while refusing to make any serious steps towards impeaching or investigating the numerous war crimes involved. You can dismiss it as taking our eyes off the ball although i don't think it was quite so innocent. But even if it were just a big enormous fuckup despite millions and millions of people worldwide taking to the streets to say "Hey wake up you monkeys," then the fact that we've done nothing substantial about it indicates that the leaders are apparently all right with it.

The best way to take away the validity of the 'democrats war' claim is to prove it wrong, and have the Democrats actually stand up for once and end the war. Cut funding. Bring new bills to end the war every day. Speak out. Impeach. Investigate the no-bid contracts and actually charge someone over them. Prevent the building of permanent military bases in Iraq.

So many things are within reach, but the party won't touch them.

And i hate your insinuation that this opinion makes me a partisan politico or freeper. Your posts are usually really well done but you seem to have this us-or-them thing going, and whenever we disagree you attack me for being stupid or arrogant. Please respond to the actual content of this post if you respond.

[McCamy Taylor]

28. Your post is left wing Democrat. More power to you and me. If impeachment happens

it will be because of pressure from the left wing of the party.

However, the center wing of the party does not deserve to be lumped with the Republicans. There are too many differences between the two groups on too many issues that affect the lives of Americans.

Calling centrist Democrats the same as Republicans contributes to Democratic voter apathy and helps to get Republicans elected as in 2000 when Nader convinced some Dems that Gore was the same as Bush (when anyone who had bothered the study Bush knew that this was not true, it was just that Gore would not move far enough to the leftin his public statements to satisfy some people).

Nader was encouraged by ultra right winger Grover Norquist who knew that the election would be close and that Bush needed to shave every vote from Gore that he could.

No self respecting Democrat or leftist should allow him or herself to be used as a tool of the right wing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. Hillary and Obama both "shot themselves in the foot" by voting for it and funding it.

My heart bleeds for politicians who do the "smart" thing and have people killed so they can show their constituents they're tough and/or "maternal".

"Maternal"?? I have to give you credit for coming up with a new rationale for killing people.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

27. exactly

[McCamy Taylor]

29. Maternal is when you tell your constituents "Look. It will be alright. You will be safe.

We are doing everything we can to protect you."

Didn't people notice that all three Dems, Edwards, Hillary and Obama were quick to say that they would bomb Pakistan if they found out Osama was hiding somewhere inside its borders? That is illegal. Richardson was the only one who said "No, that is not right." The rest of them said what they knew that America would want to hear in order to feel safe and secure. They said "I will protect you from that monster (even if it means violating the sovereignty of a nation which is our ally and which has nukes.)"

I found the answer which the three gave completely unacceptable, but I notice that no one on this board seems to have a problem with it. They understand that there are some things that leaders are required to do and say in their role as leaders in order to get elected.