This (below) is excerpted from Chris Durang's excellent essay "Some Last-Minute Obama Thoughts, After Canvasing in PA" published today (4.21.08) at HuffPost.
The complete essay can be found at http://tinyurl.com/54fxv9 ** Hillary's vote in favor of authorizing the war was a serious lapse in judgment. Obama, not at the time in the Senate, gave a speech against the war that was smart and saw many of the problems that we ended up having with this wrong invasion. But consider two other things about Hillary's vote: There was a substantial number of Democrats, unlike Hillary, who indeed voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to go to war (if and when he felt like it). 21 of 50 Democratic Senators voted against the resolution. That's 42% of Democratic Senators who Hillary did not join in voting against the authorization. ... Also voting against it was 1 Republican, Sen. Chafee (R-RI), and one independent, Sen. Jeffords (I-VT). All those Senators, some of whom took the time to read the N.I.E. which included some of the intelligence opinion that did NOT favor invasion, voted against the resolution. Senator Durbin in particular urged people to read the N.I.E. and said it influenced his decision to vote against authorization. But the pressure to go to war was high, and most Senators did not read it. (I think Hillary did not; I came across articles where it seems she refused to answer if she had. Then I gave up looking.) However, there was something else Hillary did not vote for. She did not vote for the Levin amendment, offered at the same time, that would have caused the president to return to Congress one more time before deciding to invade Iraq. I came across an op-ed piece written by Senator Chafee (the one Republican who was against the authorization). It describes the amendment well. And Hillary's not voting for this is a further example of bad judgment by her (and many other Senators). Because it's about war, and many have died (Americans and Iraqis) and five years later it's still not done. So this was a serious lapse in judgment. I hope you'll read the whole Chafee piece but here are some quotes from it: "A mere 10 hours before the roll was called on the administration- backed Iraq war resolution, the Senate had an opportunity to prevent the current catastrophe in Iraq and to salvage the United States' international standing. Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, offered a substitute to the war resolution, the Multilateral Use of Force Authorization Act of 2002. "Senator Levin's amendment called for United Nations approval before force could be authorized. It was unambiguous and compatible with international law. Acutely cognizant of the dangers of the time, and the reality that diplomatic options could at some point be exhausted, Senator Levin wrote an amendment that was nimble: it affirmed that Congress would stand at the ready to reconsider the use of force if, in the judgment of the president, a United Nations resolution was not "promptly adopted" or enforced. Ceding no rights or sovereignty to an international body, the amendment explicitly avowed America's right to defend itself if threatened. "...To a senator, we all had as our objectives the safety of American citizens, the security of our country and the disarming of Saddam Hussein in compliance with United Nations resolutions. But there was a steadfast core of us who believed that the tactics should be diplomacy and multilateralism, not the "go it alone" approach of the Bush doctrine. "Those of us who supported the Levin amendment argued against a rush to war. We asserted that the Iraqi regime, though undeniably heinous, did not constitute an imminent threat to United States security, and that our campaign to renew weapons inspections in Iraq -- whether by force or diplomacy -- would succeed only if we enlisted a broad coalition that included Arab states. "We also urged our colleagues to take seriously the admonitions of our allies in the region -- Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. As King Abdullah of Jordan warned, "A miscalculation in Iraq would throw the whole area into turmoil." Unfortunately, these arguments fell on deaf ears in that emotionally charged, hawkish, post-9/11 moment, less than four weeks before a midterm election. The Levin amendment was defeated by a 75 to 24 vote. Later that night, the Iraq War Resolution was approved, 77 to 23. Hillary was one of the 29 Democrats who joined the Republicans to make 77 votes authorizing this war that has turned out to be a disaster and an enormous economic drain. There were 21 Democrats who knew better. As did Barack Obama (and Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi and many Democratic Congress people).
