Only Fools Support Bush's Escalation

The New York Times has an article about probably Republican Presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani. (Repeat after me: "i before u, especially after g" - it is amazing how many in the media are misspelling his last name.)

Within the article there is this:

Mr. Giuliani has taken the politically risky position of supporting President Bush’s unpopular decision to send more troops to Iraq, as have the other Republicans who rank highest in early polls, Senator John S. McCain and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. But for the second time in as many days, Mr. Giuliani cautioned Saturday that the strategy might not work, and that it should not be viewed as the last word in the war.

"We hope and we root for and we pray for a successful outcome in Iraq," he said. "But our ultimate victory is not going to be a military victory. Our ultimate victory against terrorism is going to be a victory of ideas."

Here's the thing: we spend so much of our energy criticizing candidates for their vote in 2003 to give the President of the United States of America the authority to use military force as a last resort against Iraq, when we should be focusing on the positions of candidates today.

In 2003 we did not know all we know today, and even then the vote to authorize the use of force was a vote to not tie the hands of the President in a supposed chess match with Saddam Hussein.

Turns out that we were all misled. Those who believe the President lied to the American people were as misled as those who took the votes.

Four years later, with four years of disaster in Iraq behind us, and over 3000 American soldiers dead, the question we should be asking potential candidates is how can they now, with all we now know, with all that has happened, still support and back the policies that Bush espouses in Iraq?

How can Giuliani, McCain and Romney support a troop surge doomed to failure? Their very position on the matter should automatically disqualify them from holding the nation's highest office.

On the flip side, there are those that continue to dog Hillary Clinton for her vote in 2003:

As for her vote on Iraq, "I have said clearly and consistently for quite some time that I regret the way the president misused the authority," Clinton said. "He misled Congress and the country on what he was seeking and what he intended to do."

The responsibility Clinton said she accepts was helping clear the way for Bush's path in Iraq.

"I take responsibility for having voted to give him that authority," she said. "My focus is on what we do now."

Anti-war activists in the party complain that she hasn't called her vote to authorize the war a mistake as Edwards has done. Obama opposed the war from the onset.

Clinton took a vote based on the information she had at the time, and Bush did abuse his power, as he continues to do today. While there were signs that the Bush administration was chomping at the bit for a battle in Baghdad, the nation was still in a post 9/11 fuzz, and we were all played for fools by Cheney and Co.

I believe that Clinton's stance today is largely the same as the one John Edwards has taken in renouncing his vote. As for Barack Obama, it is hardly fair to compare his situation as he wasn't in Congress at the time to even take the same vote.

The issue today is clearly one of what the nation wants to do vs. what Bush wants to do. If we want to hold people accountable for the mess we're in now, look no further than the 50 million that voted for Bush in 2000, and the 62 million that did so in 2004.

Going forward, I can forgive someone who was misled in 2003, but making the mistake of supporting Bush's escalation in 2007, after all we've seen, after all we now know, after all that has happened, that is more than unforgivable, it is folly.