This diary is based on material from Jeffrey Goldberg's "Letter from Washington", subtitled "The Starting Gate" from the January 15th issue of the New Yorker. He discusses the overall position of the Democrats going into the Presidential election in the context of the three front-runners.
What was most interesting to me was the discussion of the Iraq War from the 2002 perspective.
Obama
Barack Obama clearly holds the most unassailable position. Already back in 2002 in a speech in Chicago he said:
I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. The world and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.
Well, that's pretty close to what I was saying back then. It confirms what I see as Obama's greatest strength: his ability to state the obvious truth in no-nonsense language. If he plays a significant role in breaking the Congressional impasse over the War that will go a long way towards earning my full support.
Edwards
Here's what John Edwards recently told Goldberg about that time:
I've just heard people say, "Well, you know, George Bush... misled us." ... I was there, it's not what happened.
I was on the intelligence committee so I got direct information from the intelligence community. And I had a series of meetings with former Clinton Administration people. And they were all saying the same thing. Everything I was hearing in the Intelligence Committee was the same thing I was hearing from these guys. And there was nary a dissenting voice. And so for me, the difficult judgement was not about the factual information, which I was convinced was accurate. It was about whether I was going to give authority to this President I didn't trust. That was where the friction was for me. I decided to do it, and I was wrong. I shouldn't have done it.
This is better than what I have read elsewhere. This disclosure that it wasn't just Administration propaganda that swayed him is news to me and gives me more sympathy for his point of view then. And, of course, the "Buck Stops Here" quality is admirable as far as it goes.
Clinton
Most interesting to me was Hillary Clinton's analysis:
I have respect for Presidential decision-making and I saw what the Republican Congress had done to Bill on a range of issues, denying him the authority to deal with Bosnia and Kosova and second-guessing him on every imaginable issue. And I don't think that that's good for the country, and I had no problem in giving President Bush the authority to do what he stated he would do and what I was assured privately on many occasions would be done.
In some ways this is similar to John Kerry's defense of his vote from the 2004 elections. But the personal history that colors her The-President-Deserves-more-Respect defense makes it more sympathetic than sheer unrepentance.
It's rather too Washington Establishmentarian to my taste. I don't think she could be my candidate for the nomination. But I also think she's unlikely to win the nomination. So, I hope we don't run her down too hard as I think she has the potential to do much good for the country and the party over the long haul from her position in the Senate.
Going Forward
The 2002 perspective is only interesting to a point. Whoever can actually be instrumental in ending the War before the next Presidential election will have a strong claim to take the Presidency. Edwards is in the poorest position to do that. But so far, no one else seems to be doing much either.