War Critics Question Obama's Fervor

Washington Post: Some Say Senator's Actions On Iraq War Don't Match Talk

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Perry Bacon Jr..

---

For antiwar Illinois Democrats, the speech that made them fall in love with Barack Obama was not the one he gave in Boston in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention, but one two years earlier at a hastily organized rally in Chicago on the eve of the congressional vote to authorize the Iraq war.

"I don't oppose all wars," Obama, then a state senator, said on Oct. 2, 2002. "…. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne."

This week, Obama quoted his own words in a speech on Iraq that chastised those who "took the president at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves."

But some antiwar Democrats have raised questions about the depth of Obama's opposition, taking aim at one of the signature arguments for his candidacy - that he is the only leading Democratic candidate who opposed the war from the beginning.

They say that while Obama did argue against the war as a Senate candidate, he tempered his rhetoric and his opposition once he arrived in the Capitol, rejecting timetables for withdrawal and backing war funding bills. He returned to a sharper position, they say, when he started running for president.

"So many politicians were afraid" to oppose the war, "so he gets credit for that," said Jim Ginsburg, a Chicago Democratic activist. He backed Obama when he ran for the Senate in 2004 but says Al Gore is his preferred candidate for president.

"Some of his actions and speeches once he got in the Senate did not match his rhetoric," Ginsburg, the son of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said of Obama. "He started making very mealy-mouthed comments and voted to authorize funding for the war. Once he started seeing how angry Democrats were, his rhetoric has turned to where it was in the 2004 campaign."

Obama's early opposition to the war, his advisers say, presents a telling contrast with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and fits neatly into the candidate's larger argument that experience in Washington is not important.

At the same time, its political benefit has been limited: Polls of Democratic voters show that those who favor immediate withdrawal from Iraq and who say the war is the top issue favor Clinton, as do Democrats overall. And some in the party's Net roots - the bloggers and online activists who have grown in influence and were also early critics of the war - argue that former senator John Edwards of North Carolina has been more outspoken in his opposition in the past two years.

"It's great [Obama] had good judgment," said Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who runs the popular liberal blog Daily Kos, but he added: "There's no clarity of message." Moulitsas said that Obama should have firmly come out against any bill that offers funding for the war without a timetable for withdrawal, as Edwards has.

"Barack Obama was against the war from Day One and has consistently fought to end it in the quickest, most responsible way possible," responded Obama spokesman Bill Burton. "Friends can disagree, but Obama has been one of the steadiest antiwar voices in Washington since he got there."

In a speech Wednesday, Obama offered his most detailed plan yet for getting troops out of Iraq, calling for the withdrawal of at least one of the 20 brigades (each made up of about 3,500 soldiers) in Iraq every month starting now, with all combat troops out by the end of next year. And even among the most antiwar audiences, Obama still has many supporters.

"He's been there from the very beginning," said Tom Andrews, the national director of a group called Win Without War.

That beginning dates to the fall of 2002, when a group of 15 liberal activists in Chicago, furious about the Bush administration's intentions in Iraq, were organizing a rally to show opposition.

They were not sure who would show up, even in liberal Chicago, as many leading Democrats all over the country were strongly backing President Bush's war effort. Along with inviting a group of clergymen and more senior political figures in the city, such as Jesse L. Jackson, one of the activists, Bettylu Saltzman, called Obama.

Saltzman said she had not even heard Obama's position on the war but thought that, as one of the more liberal members of the state Senate, he would be against it. Dan Shomon, a political strategist who was advising Obama at the time, said Obama told him he was concerned he would be perceived as a pacifist if he attended the rally. Shomon told Obama it was important to speak on a core issue, particularly with longtime allies such as Saltzman organizing the event.

At the rally, Obama spoke after Jackson, and a story in the next day's Chicago Tribune did not even mention his appearance. But the fiery speech, much different from the unifying address he would give almost two years later at the Democratic convention, impressed many of the antiwar activists, who would become important backers of Obama's underdog Senate campaign.

"Bush's ratings were at an all-time high," said Marilyn Katz, another organizer of the rally, who is now one of the top fundraisers for Obama's 2008 campaign. But Obama "was willing to stand up and stake out a leadership position."

[tbweb]

God and the Constitution

On Sept. 17, 1787, after a long summer of argument and compromise, the Founders completed and signed what would become the U.S. Constitution. And despite popular misconception, it didn''''t include a word about the USA being a "Christian nation."

In fact, the Constitution doesn''''t mention Christianity, or God, at all. It is a secular document outlining the structure of what would become the new government of this nation.

Likewise, the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protects every individual''''s right to practice his or her own religion %u2014 bans government "establishment" or direct support of religion %u2014 makes no mention of Christianity.

Source: http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/index.html#entry-39032319

[liberalme]

Hopefully GOD will get rid of all the "evil-doers" seeing as no one in America has the backbone to get these terrorists out of our White House!!

Republicans are balking like mules and democrats have a yellow line as wide as the Atlantic ocean going down their backs.

Why are these people afraid of Bush? There are a lot more of us than there is of his kind!
I personally, am sick of our "do nothing" representatives--I don''t care how difficult it is to impeach a president during war time!!!!!

[bluestardad]

TRY BUSH CHENY FOR WAR CRIMES...TAKE THEIR NEOCONS WITH THEM INTO TRIAL!

THE WAR WAS ILLEGAL AND STARTED ON A LIE!

[tbweb]

Part 1:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/16/wiran116.xml

Part 2:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411419433&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Part 3:
WWIII ???

[forthepeopl1]

"It''s very difficult to force a president, once you''ve given him power to go to war, to get him to change," said Lawrence Korb, a former Reagan Defense Department official now at the liberal Center for American Progress. "It''s almost impossible for Congress to do that."

thats bull-s/h/i/t all congress has to do is to de-authurize the 2002 authurisation to use force..

its that simple...so why will they not do this????

[realpatriot1]

me4prezz,

The need for long range bombers to attack Iran makes the B-52 broken arrow incident recently all the more intriguing.

The fact that several airmen from Minot have turned up dead under mysterious circumstances, including the airman responsible for the security of the tactical nukes loaded on the B-52, adds to the intrigue.

Mutiny anyone?

[brianbwb-2009]

"If a Democrat is elected to the White House them mark my words, they''''ll be the next JFK and be assassinated. Cheney really is that insane and that evil."
Posted by SgtRDS

Pre-emptive strike on Bush/Cheney? Something to think about, "clear and present danger"...

"Check mate... we lose... again." Posted by WogerWabbit

Pre-emptive strike on Bush/Cheney? Something to think about, "clear and present danger"...

"Pentagon and CIA officers say they believe that the White House has begun a carefully calibrated programme of escalation that could lead to a military showdown with Iran." Posted by me4prezz

Pre-emptive strike on Bush/Cheney? Something to think about, "clear and present danger"...

[tbweb]

I don''''t mean to sound dire, but with the US and now France talking strongly of war, I really do see WWIII as a strong possiblity and that has me scared to death. How many died in WWII? Hundreds of thousands. I don''''t want my kids to grow up in that, but how do you protect them against political agendas such as these?

Posted by me4prezz at 11:31 PM : Sep 16, 2007,,,

You are not being dire, you are being practical and realistic! I''ve studied the Spiritual domain for many years, mostly privately. I find mythology fascinating and fun too. I''ve never made any public predictions about any of it. But based on what I''ve studied I can share this; Now is the time to make your peace with your maker! Now is the time to prepare for the afterlife. The only way Earth and Humans can survive at this stage is with extreme Diplomacy and kindness and goodwill towards each other and this process will need to last for at least the next 20 years! Personally I don''t think humans can rise to the occasion. Humans like to think they are masters of all they survey but this 20 year peace challenge will be the ultimate test and I don''t think humans can be peaceful the way they need to be for even a few years. Unless humans are, these will be the last days in time. In the Spiritual domain its written, but if humans are the true masters of all they survey, it doesn''t have to be.

[sgtrds]

Bush doesn''t see Iraq as a quagmire anymore then Cheney does. To them it''s just another step in the neoconservative goal of conquest in the Middle-East to control the worlds oil supply. Cheney (who really is the president anyway) will launch an attack on Iran, no matter what the Congress or the people want. He sees this as an imperial White House, a monarchy, more then a democracy. He is determined to continue this war throughout the entire region and if it looks like a democrat who wants to change this policy is going to get elected then have no doubt that Cheney will have them killed. There is far too much money and power at stake and far too long of prison terms for those involved, to allow anyone to stop it now. If a Democrat is elected to the White House them mark my words, they''ll be the next JFK and be assassinated. Cheney really is that insane and that evil.

[me4prezz]

"French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran''s nuclear programme.
"We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," Mr Kouchner said in an interview on French TV and radio.

Mr Kouchner said negotiations with Iran should continue "right to the end", but an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose "a real danger for the whole world".

Iran has consistently denied it is trying to acquire nuclear weapons but intends to carry on enriching uranium.

Mr Kouchner also said a number of large French companies had been asked not to tender for business in Iran."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6997935.stm

WWIII anyone?

I don''t mean to sound dire, but with the US and now France talking strongly of war, I really do see WWIII as a strong possiblity and that has me scared to death. How many died in WWII? Hundreds of thousands. I don''t want my kids to grow up in that, but how do you protect them against political agendas such as these?