It's interesting that I ask for some specifics about Obama and all I get in response is attacks about the tired, bullshit issue of Senator Clinton's vote on Iraq. What, exactly, makes Obama so great on that issue? Let's look at his...gasp...record, shall we. What a novel thought!
The Obama Iraq War Timeline:
In 2002, he gave a speech that has been posted many, many times speaking out against the use of force in Iraq. His words we good and we applaud him for that, of course. But those are just words. What about his actions on Iraq?
By 2003--as the war grew more popular--
he had removed that speech from his web site. It has miracuously reappeared after the war grew unpopular.
In 2004,
Obama said he wasn't sure how he would have voted on the resolution if he had the chance to vote:
‘When asked about Senators Kerry and Edwards' votes on the Iraq war, Obama said, "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,’ Mr. Obama said. ‘What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.’
Also in 2004, Obama said that there was relatively little difference between his position and Bush's on Iraq:
In a meeting with Chicago Tribune reporters at the Democratic National Convention, Obama said, “On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago. […] There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage.”
In a 2006 interview with
The New Yorker, Obama stated the following:
So it’s not clear to me what differences we’ve had since I’ve been in the Senate. I think what people might point to is our different assessments of the war in Iraq, although I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices. So that might be something that sort of is obvious. But, again, we were in different circumstances at that time: I was running for the U.S. Senate, she had to take a vote, and casting votes is always a difficult test.
And in his 2006 book,
Audacity of Hope, Obama wrote:
Not only was the idea of an invasion increasingly popular, but on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried.
Obama waited 18 months after becoming a Senator to give a speech on Iraq. Speaking an an amendment offered by Senators Kerry and Feinstein to set a timeline for troop withdrawal,
Obama said he opposed "a precipitous withdrawal of our troops, driven by congressional edict." [Obama Floor Statement On Kerry Amendment, 6/21/06]
Also, many of you fail to realize that
Senators Clinton and Obama's voting record on Iraq is almost exactly the same, with the exception of one vote:
In fact, Obama's Senate voting record on Iraq is nearly identical to Clinton's. Over the two years Obama has been in the Senate, the only Iraq-related vote on which they differed was the confirmation earlier this year of General George Casey to be Chief of Staff of the Army, which Obama voted for and Clinton voted against.
To see a full list of votes, go here (PDF).
As you can see, there is a stark contrast between Obama's words in 2002 and his actions up until this point. How can you possibly use Iraq has some kind of advantage for Obama?
