Bob Somerby points out that Hillary Clinton was way ahead of John Edwards in opposing the war in Iraq.
The Daily Howler - February 7, 2007.
Does Clinton "still say it was the right thing to go to war?" Plainly, no, she does not. All the way back in August 04, she said, on a small program called Meet the Press, that there would have been "no basis" for the war if we’d known there were no WMD.
And what was John Edwards position at the same time? This past Sunday, Tim Russert played the tape from his 10/10/2004 interview of Edwards on Meet the Press.
MR. RUSSERT: If you knew today, and you do know, there is—there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would you still vote to go to war with Iraq?
SEN. EDWARDS: I would have voted for the resolution, knowing what I know today, because it was the right thing to do to give the president the authority to confront Saddam Hussein.
I think Saddam Hussein was a very serious threat. I stand by that, and that’s why we stand behind our vote on the resolution.
That was two months AFTER Hillary admitted her vote was wrong.
Hillary Clinton never actually admitted that she made a mistake, which is what John Edwards ultimately did in 2005. She didn't make a mistake; she voted to authorize the president to take action in Iraq based on the information she had. Hillary claimed (in 2004) that there wouldn't have been a VOTE if she knew there were no WMDs.
Meet the Press - 8/29/2004
SEN. CLINTON: There would not have been a vote, Tim. There would never have been a vote to the Congress presented by the administration. There would have been no basis for it. But we are where we are, and what I think we have to do now try to understand the series of miscalculations which for the first time ever the president admitted in an interview last week, have occurred which have rendered our situation more dangerous, less safe, and have put back the effort to try to stabilize and democratize Iraq. I believe with all my heart that, you know, we have to have new leadership at the highest level of our government in order to be successful in the strategy we have embarked upon in Iraq. No matter how we got there, and as I said, we wouldn't have even had a vote if all the facts had been available.
That's damn right. There was no justification for the war in Iraq unless there was an immediate threat to the U.S. And Edwards, running for V.P. at the time could not cop to this simple fact. He probably re-evaluated his position in 2005 when he thought about running for president in '08. Here's how he talk his way out of it.
Meet the Press - 2/4/2007
I can tell you what happened with me, personally. We got through—I was—at that point, I was in the middle of a very intense campaign, one that I thought was very important for America. When the campaign was over and the election was over, we had a lot going on in my own family. Elizabeth had been diagnosed with breast cancer, we were taking care of her. And for the first time I had time to really think about, number one, what I was going to spend my time doing, and, number two, my vote for this war. And over time, when I reflected on what I thought was going to be necessary going forward, to have some moral foundation to work on issues like poverty and genocide, things that I care deeply about, I could no longer defend this vote. It was pretty simple. And I got to the place I felt like I had to say it and had to say it publicly. And so—what?--a year—a year or so ago I did that.
Edwards is a politician, carefully crafting his words to suit his needs... just like Hillary... or Barack... or any other candidate.
Another thing I noticed from the interview was a passive-aggresive swipe at Hillary about the Iraq.
SEN. EDWARDS: For the same reason a lot of people were wrong. You know, we—the intelligence information that we got was wrong. I mean, tragically wrong. On top of that I’d—beyond that, I went back to former Clinton administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon—weapons programs. They were also wrong. And, based on that, I made the wrong judgment.
You see? It was Clinton's fault that John Edwards voted the wrong way. I, for one, am moving Hillary ahead of John Edwards on my list of choices for the '08 Democratic Party primary.