General Clark,
You cannot expect to maintain your status amongst mainstream Democrats by attempting to sugar-coat a unilateralist agenda. If you're on Hillary's team, fine. But if the cost of whatever she is prepared to offer you in exchange for your support happens to include more turns like this one here:
--Arguing that Lieberman/Kyl wasn't about justifying airstrikes (murder), but was really about standing up to the Bush administration--
then your base of support is going to dry up quickly, and the only hope for you then will be those very same coattails you're holding onto now.
I think your advocacy of Hillary's vote, the arguments you've made, has been a textbook example of intellectual dishonesty. Politics on such a grand scale, for someone such as yourself whose only asset is your honesty up to this point, the second you begin to spin, even people who don't know who you are can tell.
Please sit down and go over the tape of your appearance on Bill Maher's show, and take the criticism you receive to heart. The vast majority of people who would participate on KOS loved you before this most unfortunate turn in the past two weeks.
Is a potential cabinet slot really worth it? Why not run for the House or Senate? At least with that experience you'd be leading, and given the right committee appointments, you can surely make more of a difference in this country than you will be in your current capacity.
That way your destiny will be determined by your own actions, and not left up to the prevailing political winds a year from now, when Hillary just might recognize that your advocacy on her behalf was really a human sacrifice, and that the special interest groups (think of where you are right now) are making a lot of noise against your nomination...
12 months is a long long long LONG LONG LONG time to be winging it on topics like...war in Iran...
Because you can have whatever you want posted on that website of yours, and it doesn't matter. Not to me, and not to a good chunk of Democrats who know better by now.
Peace, Love and Acceleration
Al
UPDATE: I want to make clear that my angle here isn't whether or not Lieberman/Kyl provided Bush the legal cover to go to war (as I believe at this point that the WH doesn't feel it needs to go to Congress before dropping bombs). That's not the issue here as I see it. What I'm most offended by is this attitude apparantly shared by 75% of the Senate, that it is our right to unilaterally condemn a soverign nation's military and enforce economic sanctions on them that have not been approved by an international body.
Because not only are we without actual evidence that Iran is building a nuke, we are taking it upon ourselves to act as judge, jury and (perhaps) exocutioner in a matter that should be handled at the UN. The lesson learned in Iraq was that the UN actually had a handle on the WMD situation. They are far more competent in determining what Iran is up to than we are.
If Hillary chose Lieberman/Kyl as an opportunity to score politically in the general election, it was an historic choice for something like that. Supporters can deny it all they want, but here's the text of the amendment and a couple of my notes. I can't see how this is not a unilateralist act of aggression against a soverign nation.
(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;
(READ: Iran is an enemy, it is a threat to democracy, EVEN THOUGH IT IS A DEMOCRACY ITSELF)
(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi’a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;
(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and
(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.
(READ: That our Treasury Department should act...not the international community, but our own government should act now against this supposedly terrorist organization)
UNILATERALISM - it's bad for life on this planet, whether it's us or any other country in the past or future.