Let's take a look at what the Dems were saying about Iraq BEFORE the results of the 2006 elections dragged them, kicking and screaming and fighting all the way, into an antiwar stance . . .
Let's have a look at just how strong the Democrat, uh, opposition to the war was BEFORE the 2006 elections:
Washington Post Aug 22, 2005:
Senate Democrats, according to aides, convened a private meeting in late June to develop a cohesive stance on the war and debated every option -- only to break up with no consensus.
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) broke with his party leadership last week to become the first senator to call for all troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by a specific deadline. Feingold proposed Dec. 31, 2006.
In delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address yesterday, former senator Max Cleland (Ga.), a war hero who lost three limbs in Vietnam, declared that "it's time for a strategy to win in Iraq or a strategy to get out."
Although critical of Bush, the party's establishment figures -- including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) -- all reject the Feingold approach, reasoning that success in Iraq at this point is too important for the country.
Feingold said, "We have to go on the offensive to show the American people that we're not afraid to disagree." He said that he believes an immediate withdrawal does not make military sense but that the public needs reassurance that the Iraq operation is moving purposefully toward completion.
When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted a confirmation hearing for Bush confidante Karen Hughes, tapped as the next undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, not a single Democrat showed up to grill her on administration policy.
"Credit the Democrats for not trying to pour more gasoline on the fire, even if they're not particularly unified in their message," said Michael McCurry, a former Clinton White House press secretary. "Democrats could jump all over them and try to pin Bush down on it, but I'm not sure it would do anything but make things worse. The smartest thing for Democrats to do is be supportive."
CNN, April 21, 2004:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said she is not sorry she voted for a resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action in Iraq despite the recent problems there but she does regret "the way the president used the authority."
"How could they have been so poorly prepared for the aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein?" the New York Democrat asked Tuesday night on CNN's "Larry King Live."
"I don't understand how they had such an unrealistic view of what was going to happen."
"Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since," she said. "No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade."
"*The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration*," she said. "It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared.
MSNBC, June 13, 2005
At a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, party activists were hoping to hear one of their leaders denounce President Bush’s Iraq policy.
One rose to the occasion, electrifying the crowd by asking: "What I want to know is why in the world the Democratic Party leadership is supporting the president's unilateral attack on Iraq?"
"I think Democrats have largely been backed into a corner on Iraq," said Judith Hope, a DNC executive committee member from New York. "While most of us believe we should never have gone in there in the first place, many of us believe that now that we’re there, we have no choice but to finish the job. It would be both immoral and dangerous to bail out of that part of the world, given what we know today."
She added that the day may come when "the political leadership of this country has to say, ‘Not only was it a mistake to go in there, it’s a failure, and we’ve got to get out,’ but I don’t think we’re there yet."
Another DNC member, Karen Marchioro, the former co-chair of Dean’s campaign in Washington state, said, "Once we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess like this, I’m not sure what I think we should do — and I was opposed to this thing from the get-go. I don’t think it’s a fair question to ask of people who opposed this war to figure out how to get out of it."
USA Today, July 5, 2004
The Democratic Party pledges an unrelenting struggle against terrorism and a commitment to seeing Iraq succeed, according to a statement of election principles shaped heavily by national security crises.
The working draft of the Democratic Party platform rebukes President Bush's leadership on foreign policy and talks tough on terrorism. But it doesn't take a position on a central issue: whether the war in Iraq was justified.
"People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq," according to the draft, written in coordination with the Kerry campaign. Some anti-war Democrats say they will try to revise and harden the platform's stance toward the war.
The 16,000-word document is shorter and more thematic than the 2000 platform. A copy was made available to USA TODAY and other news organizations.
It says Democrats will:
• Finish the job in Iraq. "We cannot allow a failed state in Iraq that inevitably would become a haven for terrorists and a destabilizing force in the Middle East," it says. It calls for persuading NATO to contribute additional military forces, a step NATO has declined to take.
• Fund 40,000 more troops for the U.S. military. It doesn't say additional troops should be deployed to Iraq, however.
Salon.Com, Dec 2, 2005
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. of Delaware, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)
Norm Kurz, the senator's communication director, said that despite some calls for an immediate pullout from Iraq, Sen. Biden has "never believed in a specific timeline" for a troop drawdown. *"Pulling out precipitously is a problem," Kurz says, relaying Biden's view, "if what we leave behind is a haven for terrorists."*
Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, December 2005
(In a statement to Salon)
Sen. Bayh's communication director, Dan Pfeiffer, said that while the senator believes a strategy to bring home the troops needs to be implemented, any plan must be "driven by events on the ground." Bayh, Pfeiffer said, rejects the mandatory withdrawal from Iraq by "any specific date."
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, Nov. 29, 2005
"I do not believe that we should allow this to be an open-ended committment without limits or end. Nor do I believe that we can or should pull out of Iraq immediately. I believe we are at a critical point with the December 15th elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year, while leaving behind a smaller contingent in safer areas with greater intelligence and quick strike capabilities. This will advance our interests, help fight terrorism and protect the interests of the Iraqi people."
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Nov. 30, 2005
"This debate is not about an artificial date for withdrawal ... No one is talking about running in the face of a challenge. We're talking about how to win, how to succeed, how do you best achieve our goals? That's the choice here...
"So what the president did not acknowledge today at all is that the presence of our troops itself is a part of the current reality on the ground that presents food for the insurgency. And you need to reduce that presence over a period of time in order to be able to succeed, not fail."
Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Nov. 11, 2005
"We've reached the point where the large number of our troops in Iraq hurts, not helps, our goals. Therefore, early next year, after the Iraqi elections, when a new government has been created, we should begin redeployment of a significant number of troops out of Iraq. This should be the beginning of a gradual process to reduce our presence and change the shape of our military's deployment in Iraq."
Foreign Policy in Focus, July 6, 2006
The Democratic leadership of both the House and Senate supports continued funding of the Iraq war and has been reluctant to force the Bush administration to set even a tentative deadline for the withdrawal of American troops. Indeed, the Democrats—who controlled the Senate in 2002—share responsibility with the Republicans for creating the tragic conflict in Iraq by voting to authorize the invasion in the first place.
On June 15, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly defeated a resolution calling for the withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq by the end of this year. Only six of the 100 senators voted in favor of the resolution
During the same week, the House of Representatives, by a 256-153 vote, claimed that the ongoing war in Iraq was part of the "war on terror" and explicitly declared that "it is not in the national security interest of the United States to set an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Iraq." Forty-two Democrats joined all but three Republicans in supporting the resolution.
Faced with a lack of support in the Senate for a withdrawal of American forces by the end of the year, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts put forward a resolution the following week calling for a withdrawal by July 1, 2007. The Democratic leadership reportedly put enormous pressure on Kerry to withdraw even this tepid resolution from consideration, but the bill went to the floor anyway. Kerry's bill was also soundly defeated, with no Republican senators and only 13 of the 44 Democratic senators voting in favor.
They are not on our side. They never were on our side. They are not opposed to the war. They never were opposed to the war. They were still talking about succeeding in the war. And they'd not be paying even lip service to us now, if we hadn't gone out and won in the 2006 elections.