Dear Keith,
House Resolution 362 and Senate Resolution 580, as I'm sure you know, both grant the Presnit the freedom to blockade Iran!!  

Holy Iraq War Resolution-Groundhog Day Clusterf--k, Batman!

Dems are supporting it!  Hell, Evan Bayh is sponsoring the Senate version.

Top of the hour, special comment, daily reminder, crawl with all sponsors and supporters of these insane resolutions, whatever it takes, Keith, get at it - PLEASE.

EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW THIS IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW!  God help us if we do it, and I pray, pray, pray we won't, but everyone needs to know exactly what we're doing if we allow this to happen.  IGNORANCE IS NOT AN EXCUSE!

I was making good progress climbing out of the rabbit hole, but my handhold just failed and I am falling again...

John McCain drank deeply from the NoeCon's KoolAid in 2002 as his speech in favor of the Iraq War Resolution shows:

It will answer the fundamental question about America's purpose in the world, whether we perceive our beliefs to be uniquely American principles or universal values, for if they are so dear to us that we believe all people have the right to enjoy them, we should be willing to stand up for them, wherever they are threatened.

It will reveal whether we are brave, and wise or reluctant self-doubting,
and in retreat from a world that still, in its cruelest corners, possesses a merciless hostility to our values and interests. It will test us, as did September 11, except that we can choose to engage the enemy on our terms rather than wait for the battle to be brought to us.

PDF file

McCain completely buys into the NeoCon's bizarre theory to democratize the region through force of arms in Iraq.

It occurs to me that as Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy sinks into history, it might be a good time for her to redeem herself in the eyes of Democrats, and to redeem the party in the eyes of the nation and the world, by organizing and leading an apology by her and other congressional Democrats who voted in favor of the Iraq war resolution. It seems to me that this can and should be a prominent part of the Democratic convention. It could be achieved either explicitly in a speech by Hillary Clinton herself, followed by speeches by other yay voters, or it could even be achieved implicitly such that each of those speakers makes their own apology for/recognition of their error. I think there would be three main, beneficial effects of this.

Well, she finally made my head explode with yet another "explanation" of her vote on the Iraq War Resolution--formally known, let's recall, as the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. First, from Wikipedia, a description of the resolution:

The resolution "supported" and "encouraged" diplomatic efforts by President Bush to "strictly enforce through the U.N. Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" and "obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion, and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."
The resolution authorized President Bush to use the Armed Forces of the United States "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate" in order to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq."

[My emphasis]
--wikipedia

More follows...

IN THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11 SHE WAS MIA ON CRITICAL HEALTHCARE INITIATIVE

During the days, weeks and months following 9/11 the first responders, who risked their lives in lower Manhattan have become known to us in documentaries and films like Michael Moore’s "Sicko" as tragic heroes who sacrificed their health and sometimes their lives to find the remains of those who perished and to clean up the debris and rubble of the once mighty World Trade Center complex.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani, EPA Director Christy Todd Whitman and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton were MIA when steps should have and could have been taken to protect the health of these first responders. Giuliani, Whitman and Clinton have never been held accountable for this failure in leadership.

For months, the Bush Administration has been trying to lock in the U.S. Military's occupation of Iraq regardless of who our next president is.  Democratics in Congress as well as candidates Clinton and Obama have insisted that any agreement will require ratification by the Senate.  BushCo disagrees.

The White House is trying to slide an open-ended treaty obligation to prop up the Maliki government under the guise of negotiating a routine "status of forces" agreement -- claiming that American occupation of Iraq is like stationing Army and Air Forces in Germany or Okinawa.  Of course, that doesn't pass the "laugh-out-loud-disbelief" test.

Now, Bush's argument for the Administration's unilateral commitment of our military force to open-ended occupation is that it is justified under the original "Use of Force Resolution" of 2002, and that Congress has recorded its complaisance(and collusion) by not cutting off funding operations in Iraq despite several half-hearted gestures.

October 2, 2002, in the streets of Chicago, Barack Obama had this to say about the Iraq War:  

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

I have gotten myself into some trouble recently.  I actually had two HR's (ouch!)  on a comment I made:

[new] Sorry ~ What protest were you at exactly prior to the AUF vote? (1+ / 2-)
by PamelaD on Thu Feb 21, 2008 at 07:52:42 PM PST

I was responding to several people who had represented that Hillary did not listen to the "millions" of protestors prior to voting on the now infamous AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAQ RESOLUTION OF 2002  

I THINK I would have voted against the Iraqi war resolution. Not I would have fought this bill with every fiber of my being.  Not that I would have been standing with Robert Byrd through the night as he defended our constitution.  No.  "I think I would have voted against it if it were an up or down vote."

These were his exact words recorded in an interview with Jeff Berkowitz on 11/25/02 and available on this site about half way into the three minute clip.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/...

The single element that has catapulted this man with a scant four years of national political experience into the cusp of our party's leadership is that he was right on Iraq, that he opposed the war.  

This video is flaky and stops in the middle.  I had to give it several tries before I got to the part that I quoted,  but it is the most important clue into the real nature of Senator Obama, that shows a different person than the one depicted today.  

Kodak Center, Los Angeles, Jan 31. Round 17 on Hillary’s vote for the 2002 Iraq war resolution: poor judgment? Something to apologize for? With civility this time:

Hillary says that her vote in support of the resolution was a vote for "coercive diplomacy" to force new inspections. Obama retorts that "the legislation, the authorization had the title, an authorization to use U.S. military force...I think everybody, the day after that vote was taken, understood this was a vote potentially to go to war."

During Thursday's debate in Hollywood, Hillary Clinton was asked not only why she voted to authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq (H.R. Res. 114), but also why she voted against the so-called Levin Amendment, which would have authorized

the use of the United States Armed Forces, pursuant to a new resolution of the United Nations Security Council, to destroy, remove, or render harmless Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons-usable material, long-range ballistic missiles, and related facilities, and for other purposes.

Explaining her vote, Clinton replied:

"The way [the Levin] amendment was drafted suggested that the United States would subordinate whatever our judgment might be going forward to the United Nations Security Council. I don't think that was a good precedent. Therefore I voted against it.

http://www.gwu.edu/...

http://www.gwu.edu/...

http://www.state.gov/...

Had Hillary cared to read the October, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which was the intelligence community's authoritative formal estimate of the existence of WMDs in Iraq, she would have known about the serious doubts contained therein.

I think the overwhelming concensus is that the debate was close, but that Hillary had HUGE problems on Iraq. Particularly, while her refusal to admit a mistake is pretty much accepted (if unacceptable), something that is getting renewed look by the media is her explanation on the Levin Amendment. We'll take a look below the jump.

The Obama campaign has been parrying attacks from the Clinton camp on his opposition to the war.  Obama has been reacting by claiming he had better judgment at the time.  Here's an idea for a commercial he could run nationwide, comparing his speech criticizing the rush to war with Hillary's floor speech in the Senate.  Who had better judgment at the time?  In their own words:

There has been a lot of back-and-forth about Hillary Clinton's interview on Meet the Press this morning.  I woke up early to watch her interview today (as I was out last night celebrating my birthday, this was no easy task) and the comment I was struck the most by had nothing to do with racial politics or voter disenfranchisement in Nevada.  Rather, it was Hillary's explanation of her 2002 vote on the Levin Amendment to the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.

The particular quotation I'm interested in, taken from this transcript, follows below the jump.

some of you might be curious as to what it looks like to be right the first time on matters of life & death & national integrity.
Vote "NO'' On Iraq War Resolution US, Statement by Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), October 3, 2002 here you will find representative kucinich's point by point refutation of the iraq war resolution that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, tarnished our national reputation & will likely cost you & your progeny trillions of dollars.
a couple of highlights:

But the key issue here that the American people need to know is that U.N. inspection teams identified and destroyed nearly all such weapons. A lead inspector, Scott Ritter, said that he believes that nearly all other weapons not found were destroyed in the Gulf War. Furthermore, according to a published report in The Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency, yes, the Central Intelligence Agency, has no up-to-date accurate report on Iraq's capabilities of weapons of mass destruction.

interesting, he actually considered contrar.y evidence

On the heels of Bill's infamous "I opposed the Iraq war from the beginning" Hillary Clinton is engaging in some serious IWR revisionism.

Because, she says, she wouldn't have gone to war with Iraq.

Even though she voted for it and didn't say it was wrong to invade at any point before 2007.

The chutzpah below the fold.

I wrote this for today's Beyond Chron.

While Hillary Clinton tries to spin herself out of the fact that she gave George Bush the green light to invade Iran, Nancy Pelosi has worked to put the brakes on this reckless adventure.  The House Speaker said she will not let the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution come to a vote on the House floor, pointing out the unprecedented move of declaring a whole foreign army a “terrorist organization.”  Once again, the first woman Speaker and (possibly) the first woman President are on opposite sides of the neo-con agenda – like in 2002, when Senator Clinton voted for the Iraq War Resolution while Pelosi rallied her House colleagues against it.  While history has proven Pelosi right, AIPAC and the neo-con cabal are bracing for another pre-emptive War with Iran – a larger country than Iraq whose U.S. occupation would create even worse consequences.