A CELEBRATION OF THE MOST VACUOUS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IN AMERICAN HISTORY
masher@penetratinginsightsintotheobvious.com

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Obama: Well, you know, I think the opposition to the war in Iraq was as tough a decision as I've had to make. Not only because there were political consequences, but also because Saddam Hussein was a real bad person, and there was no doubt that he meant America ill. But I was firmly convinced at the time that we did not have strong evidence of weapons of mass destruction, and there were a lot of questions that, as I spoke to experts, kept on coming up. Do we know how the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds are going to get along in a post-Saddam situation? What's our assessment as to how this will affect the battle against terrorists like al Qaeda? Have we finished the job in Afghanistan?

So I agonized over that. And I think that questions of war and peace generally are so profound. . . .

But Obama's famous anti-Iraq speech, which he delivered Oct. 26, 2002, depicted the decision as anything but profound:

I don't oppose all wars. 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. What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

... In his speech, Obama gave no quarter to those who disagreed with him: no indication that there were any valid points on their side, or even that they might have been arguing in good faith.