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[smjjames]

We already know he's eccentric anyway.

[RedKing]

Fucking nominations, how do they work? -- asks Herman "2Dope" Cain, circa 2011.



Is anyone else's jaw hanging open at the recent race of GOP candidates to denounce the Iraq War, and talk up how they wouldn't have voted for it?

Part of me is glad that this will now hopefully convince the remaining inbreds in this country still defending that shitpile of a war to let it go.
The larger part of me wants to tie these horseturds to a pillory and give 1000 lashes each until they openly and publicly say "I WAS WRONG". And not just the candidates, but also (or maybe *especially*) guys like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, who were the loudest cheerleaders of the war and vocally denigrated those who opposed the war.

[nenjin]

Is anyone else's jaw hanging open at the recent race of GOP candidates to denounce the Iraq War, and talk up how they wouldn't have voted for it?

Not really. Seems like positioning to undercut Jeb during the nomination, making him guilty by association. Well, that and Jeb categorically said he would have waged the same war, based on the same shitty intelligence. Before swiftly saying the opposite next week.

What flabbergasted me was that Hilary didn't even slightly equivocate about her stance on the war, despite the fucking senate record showing exactly how she voted. "I opposed the war once facts came to light about our intelligence" sounds better than "I always opposed the war. <from the back of the crowd> "No you didn't!""

[wierd]

She's a politician. Lieing is part of the game, and spincontrol is a means to an end.

There's also the possible explanation of:

Morally, she was opposed to the war, but voted in favor given the information provided.  Thus, she was morally opposed to the conflict (always against== true!), but still voted to engage in it, based on faulty intelligence.

Personally, I was opposed to the war on the basis that you cannot stop an ideology short of enacting ideological genocide. (complete destruction of a way of thinking) Doing that is far more costly than any kind of traditional warfare imaginable. (It would be far less expensive to just drop enough nukes on them that nothing survives, not even germs.)

However, given the stakes, the consequences of inaction would have been catastrophic if the intelligence was correct. (Choosing inaction would have been unconscionably against the mandated objectives of the public servants in question-- they are tasked with preserving the integrity and safety of the united states and its people, and allowing a foreign power to develop WMDs would have been against this.)

Basically, one of those moments where you wince terribly as you push the button, because you REAALLY dont want to press it, but feel that doing it is marginally better than not pressing it.

[RedKing]

Yeah, whatev. That intelligence case started looking shaky about 0.5 seconds after it came out of Colin Powell's mouth. There were numerous leaks at the time coming from the CIA and DIA basically saying "Yeaahhh....we don't really know what Saddam's has or doesn't have", and yet at the same time that you had Rumsfeld saying "We know he has the weapons. We know where they are."

Everyone and their brother has blamed "intelligence failures" for years, but the only intellligence failure was in the brains of those who took Rumsfeld and Cheney's Team B bullshit at face value.

[SalmonGod]

I was 17 at the time with little political awareness, and it was immediately a bunch of crap even to me.  It was blatantly taking advantage of the cultural climate right after 9/11 for some easy war profiteering.  It was incredible to me that anyone fell for the shit.

[nenjin]

Basically, one of those moments where you wince terribly as you push the button, because you REAALLY dont want to press it, but feel that doing it is marginally better than not pressing it.

I don't really fault her for voting for the war. Practically everyone did, at the time. Everyone in power was either too enraged, too gutless or too opportunistic to question it.

What I fault her for is riding the bandwagon on the Iraq War's popularity today, instead of giving a measured, realistic response. You know. The kind of thing a veteran political operative should be capable of doing, realizing their senate record directly contradicts what they're saying. That whole moment is a deep embarrassment for everyone involved. Maybe copping to that would have been better than acting like they're still on some moral high ground.

Anyways, the reason we're even talking about the Iraq War is because Jeb is a Bush. Normally I'd say any publicity during an election can be considered good publicity. But almost everyone has managed to either make themselves look like a hypocrite by mentioning their stance on it, or demonstrated how they'll say anything people want to hear at the time if it polls well. I know I know, someone in back is going to say "That always happens!" Just seems like even the front runners are in on the act now, which typically they're capable of staying above that level of stupid because they don't need to dip down into it.

[smjjames]

Anyways, the reason we're even talking about the Iraq War is because Jeb is a Bush.

Not really. If he hadn't decided to absorb G.W. Bush's baggage (which btw, he's definetly having !!!FUN!!! with) by making him one of his advisors, we might not be, at least not as fervently. Heck, G.W. Bush started backing away at light speed when Jeb fumbled with questions in Iraq. Then again, theres the whole Middle East situation, which itself is bringing up it's own can of worms.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[nenjin]

I'm trying to find the article I read about it. And in doing other skimming it seems like she's copped to it.

[Aqizzar]

Is anyone else's jaw hanging open at the recent race of GOP candidates to denounce the Iraq War, and talk up how they wouldn't have voted for it?

Early on in the 2012 Primary race, the major Republicans spent about two weeks denouncing each other for being too capitalist.  That actually happened.

Some people will try to say anything to win an election, banking on the vast majority people not bothering to check any twelve year old recordings for when they said the exact opposite.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, most of the time it doesn't significantly affect anyone's opinion.

[Zangi]

A sack of dirt is still going to be a sack of dirt... but, more importantly, my sack of dirt is still better then your sack of dirt.

[GreatJustice]

Of course, the alternative to being a flip-flopping, spineless politician that bends with the wind is to be an "unelectable extremist" and to be hammered over and over on the one or two "objectionable" issues. Plus, even if you've held an unpopular view that has since been vindicated (eg. opposing the Iraq War from the get-go), you won't get mainstream support or coverage for being principled, you'll get hammered on an entirely different unpopular view instead. Hell, sometimes you could even get attacked for expressing a patently obvious truth. From 2001 to 2013 or so there was this inexplicable tendency in the US to demonize anyone that suggested actually trying to understand the motivations of terrorists rather than simply referring to them as "evildoers".

[mainiac]

It feels wrong to even say it but I agree with GJ.  Those who opposed the war paid a political price for it at the time but weren't rehabilitated when they were vindicated.  That's a big part of Obama's success, he came to national prominence just after the war debate had turned so he never suffered for opposing it.

There's this whole idea of a master politician shaping narratives.  It's rather silly.  They aren't psychics.  Sometimes you can manipulate the issues but Iraq was hard to bring up the intelligence failures because it just wasn't sexy.  Whatshisname from West Virginia pulled out all the stops and he was completely freakin' ignored.

[SalmonGod]

And I'll still give preference to judging based on how their decisions effected millions of lives over how they've incorporated those decisions into their campaign strategy.