The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Scrooge McSam]

Thank you John Edwards

I'm sorry I didn't get to vote for you.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

we'd be there regardless of who was President or from which party

You always say that and I always disagree completely. No other President would have spent their entire administration, literally from day one, looking for an excuse to go into Iraq (documented fact that this is exactly what happened). Sorry, we're in Iraq solely because George Walker Bush and his inner circle wanted us to be in Iraq. Whatever his reasons were (revenge, oil, actually believed they were a threat), they were HIS reasons and other than Dick Cheney, no one else would have lead us along this path. Without the filter of the Bush administration constantly and desperately hunting for any shred of a reason to invade, there was no rational justification.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

You always say that and I always disagree completely.

I base it simply on the literally hundreds of quotes from leading dems about the threat Saddam was. Now they say it was due to being duped by faulty intelligence, and while that may be the case, the sentiment of the country in general was to go. Being that Hillary is a poll hound, she would have certainly gone. I think Gore would have as well. I do believe that i have perhaps overstated by saying anyone - that is certainly not true, as Kucinich certainly wouldn't have gone.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I base it simply on the literally hundreds of quotes from leading dems about the threat Saddam was. Now they say it was due to being duped by faulty intelligence...

Faulty intelligence that was filtered through an administration looking for an excuse. Without Bush in the White House, a VERY different story would have been presented to Congress...if it was presented to Congress at all.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I base it simply on the literally hundreds of quotes from leading dems about the threat Saddam was. Now they say it was due to being duped by faulty intelligence, and while that may be the case, the sentiment of the country in general was to go. Being that Hillary is a poll hound, she would have certainly gone. I think Gore would have as well. I do believe that i have perhaps overstated by saying anyone - that is certainly not true, as Kucinich certainly wouldn't have gone.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Faulty intelligence that was filtered through an administration looking for an excuse. Without Bush in the White House, a VERY different story would have been presented to Congress...if it was presented to Congress at all.

One need only look to Gore(you know, the guy who "won" in 2000). His quotes could not have possibly been "filtered though an administration looking for an excuse" since most of his pro-war statements were made before Bush was even elected.

[scaeagles]

I would respond but Sleepy said it very well. The intelligence was around LONG before Bush took office.

[BarTopDancer]

I'm done doing the coulda/woulda/mighta/what-ifs over the choices this Administration made vs. what someone else would have done. It's frustrating and can't be changed. Maybe this country would be in a better place. Maybe this country would be in a worse place. No one can truly say.

McCain scares the crap out of me with his 'pro war' stance. Hillary scares the crap out of me with her 'same ol same ol campaign promises that will never come true' (cutting tax subsidies to the oil companies? like that will get through Congress). Well that and her trying to prove to the world that she is just as tough as any man (who did the Republican gayboy war games reference) - that fits.

I suspect that if Hillary gets the Dem nom then McCain will win.

[SacTown Chronic]

Yes, the Dems who voted for/advocated invading The Iraq are just as responsible as the Bush administration, citizen war supporters, and two-time Bush voters for what has happened. But to say we would have gone in with anyone as president is an astounding bit of revisionist, conscience-clearing nonesense. John McCain would never have linked 9/11 to The Iraq. Al Gore? Never in a kadgillion fvcking years.



sleepy,

Can you provide those quotes*? We went into The Iraq as a direct result of 9/11 (allegedly). I'd love to read Al Gore's clairvoyant, circa 2000, quotes about The Iraq and 9/11/01.



*Noting vaugue about Saddam pre-9/11, please. Every national politician of the last 25 years has had something to say about Saddam. We never go into The Iraq without the 70% support from the masses....and Bush (or Gore) doesn't get that support without lying about Saddam's role in 9/11. It follows then, that the only way we invade The Iraq is through Bush and his merry band of liars.

[Alex]

I wish that Edwards had stayed in through next week. That could have helped Obama but I see his departure now as hurting him.

Hundreds of thousands of people have already voted and probably 12-15% have voted for Edwards. It is purely a gut feeling but I believe that without Edwards those votes would have overwhelmingly gone to Obama.

Now he'll only get a few percent of the voting day votes (his name will still be on the ballot some people will still vote for him) meaning that in most states that he is unlikely to reach the minimum threshold in proportional assignment of delegates where if he'd stayed in the race he would have received them.

This isn't ideal for Obama, but I do believe that if things remain close between him and Clinton that Edwards will eventually throw his delegates to Obama. So if he'd stayed in the race those 12-15% of the absentee ballots would eventually have carried some weight for Obama but now they're likely completely off the table of no use to anybody.


This is one reason that, while I make use of it, I don't support early and absentee balloting (at least not as it is currently carried out).

[Alex]

I think that with the evidence and intelligence at hand in 2002 any significant leader from either party would have considered the continued presence of Saddam Hussein as leader of Iraq to be a serious threat to our national security. While there were naysayers, it was the general belief that Saddam Hussein had old WMDs and was pursuing more.

I considered him an unacceptable threat (without ever linking him to 9/11) and continue to believe that this belief was reasonable at that time.

However, I do not believe that any other potential president would have followed the same course of action that led to the Iraq War. They would have prioritized things differently and it is very easy to accept that this would have move Iraq down the list of immediate threats worthy of pre-emption. It was the specific combination of believing Saddam to be a general threat (which pretty much everybody did) with the neoconservative filter on how to prioritize the many threats that exits (which the rest of the government was then convinced to go along with).

Yes, other presidents may have also made the decision that Iraq was an unacceptable imminent threat, but the way they made the argument may have proven unconvincing. Or any other thousands of factors would have played out differently (with a Democratic president, a Republican controlled congress may have applied the breaks harder just out of general cantankerousness whereas in the reality Democrats who otherwise would have argued stronger knew they were on the losing side and didn't want to be easy victims of charges of unpatriotism once the war started).

That's why, while fun, alternative history and games of "what if" are ultimately pointless. While one can lay out an alternative sequence that seems logical and inevitable given one single variable change it isn't real. It always proceeds not from the logic of its antecedents but rather with the objective of its endpoint.