My take on the "war vote…"

…is pretty much the same as William Raspberry's, but his analogy is better than anything I've come up with...

Except they didn't really vote us into war. As I recall, that vote authorizing the president to use force against Iraq was analogous to a trade union's strike vote. When negotiations bog down, union leaders often will ask their members for a resolution authorizing a strike. For members to refuse such a vote would cripple their own leadership. But to grant it is not the same as ending negotiations and launching a strike. It is a way of steeling the leadership, giving it a powerful negotiating tool.

Unfortunately, some within the Democratic Party itself have fallen into the Rovian trap and allowed some of our candidates and leaders to be described as having voted 'for the war.' It was the basis of the 'flip-flopper' assault launched against John Kerry by the Dean camp, a line that was happily picked up and expanded on by the Bushco™ slander syndicate.

We can't afford the luxury of division over who was where on what when. The stakes going forward are too high. Hardly a Democrat voted for this war, and with some of the Party's strongest hawks joining the chorus of critics it's time for general amnesty on the use of force resolution.

The question can't be "why then?" It has to be "What now?"

The answer seems obvious to me…



Hat tip to Mr. Natural at Left Edge North.