Just words?

[RetiredGySgt]

He said Congress... not the Senate. Congress is composed of two houses.

81 dem house members voted FOR war, 126 voted against. 21 Dem Senators voted against war, with 1 Independent and 1 Republican. That leaves 28 Senators from the Dem side voting for. Maybe 29, pretty sure when the "independant" switched from Republican to that he changed the balance in the Senate by siding with them.

Already linked the roll call vote in a thread.


In a thread where Maineman most definately HAS said Bush lied to Congress and where he has said Bush had the Intelligence Agencies lie to Congress as well. In that thread he has claimed that it is not a crime for the President and the Intelligence agencies to lie to Congress.

 

[maineman]

Lol, ya think?

Yeah, he's right.

There were 81 dems who voted for it, and 126 who voted against.

So, let me rephrase, close to half of the Dems in the Congress voted for it. Can we please demonize all of them?

Teri:

I have previously stated that I am pissed at ALL the democrats who voted for the use of force and I would not support any of them until they repented.

 

[maineman]

So lets get it straight right now.... You have never claimed Bush lied to Congress, even though you claim his State of the Union Speech had lies in it. You never claimed Bush had the Intelligence Agencies withhold ( you know lie) information from Congress? Bush never lied to Congress to trick them into voting for a war they did not want? He never had any of his Executive Officers lie to Congress in the run up to the vote? He never had the Intelligence agencies lie to Congress by purposefully withholding critical information when they briefed or reported to Congress?

Further you have never claimed that the Democrats that voted for war were afraid they would not get reelected if they did not vote for war?

Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I HAVE implied that Bush lied to congress in his SOTU address... and if, when his minions testified to congress, they created the impression that there was certainty about Saddam's WMD's... I guess those were lies as well.

I have often clamed that many of the democrats that voted for the war were afraid of being labelled as pro-terrorist cowards by the Rove slime machine and many DID, I am sure, consider that when casting their terrible vote for the use of force resolution. If they have not repented, I have not forgiven them.

My main contention with Bush, however, has always been the fact that he tried to mislead US...the people... and for the majority of us, he succeeded in that. All his speeches, all the speeches of his minions were preying on the fear and anger of Americans and channelling that fear and anger away from Al Qaeda and onto Saddam and Iraq. It was that fear and anger and the belief that there was a connection between Saddam and Osama that would clearly allow Saddam to give WMD's to Osama any minute now that propelled the rush to war... images of mushroom clouds over American cities propelled the rush to war...and, in my humble opinion, it was the wrong war at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons. We STILL have a war to fight.... we STILL have an enemy who is, by our own estimation, just as strong as he was five years ago and getting stronger...and our efforts in Iraq are NOT doing anything substantive to defeat that enemy.

 

[Teri B.]

Teri:

I have previously stated that I am pissed at ALL the democrats who voted for the use of force and I would not support any of them until they repented.

I have to admit, I felt that way at the time, cause I've bitterly hated Bush since the 2000 election. But then I considered that they have a responsibility to put that hatred aside and protect the American people. Given the false intelligence they were fed, which even Colin Powell couldn't debunk after 5 days of grilling Tenet and other CIA officers, the promises the Administration made on how they would use this resolution, and the fact that Bush had just done the right thing by going into Afghanistan, I decided they were doing their best.

I'll grant you, the Democrats have been utter wimps in the Congress and continue to be, and I'm not happy with them at all. Even now, they're screwing around investigating baseball players instead of forcing Bush to get us out of this war, turn over documents and witnesses regarding how we got into this damn war in the first place and the U.S. Attorney firings. But let's face it, with the numbers we have in the senate and the fact that the justice dept. won't enforce their subpoenas, what the heck can they really get done anyway?

I think that there was a lot of pressure to do the "patriotic" thing, sure, and cave into Bush's scare tactics, but I also believe they did what they thought was best for the country they were responsible for.

Besides, if being against the war from the start was the most important criteria for being president, then I guess you and I should be president. It's easy to be righteous, but it's damn hard to do what you think is right.