What Obama Said
03 October 2007 8:00 am by Taylor Marsh
Honestly, Mr. Obama set himself up for this one. Zinger below compliments of Chris Dodd.
Today, the Obama campaign is celebrating the 5th anniversary of the speech
that then-State Senator Barack Obama gave opposing the invasion of Iraq. But
unfortunately, they forgot to celebrate another anniversary. July 26th marked
the 3rd anniversary of the New York Times story in which Obama admitted that
he did not know how he would have voted on the Iraq resolution had he been
serving in the United States Senate at the time of the vote:“In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and
Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have
done the same based on the information he had at the time. ‘But, 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.’”
[The New York Times, 7/26/04, emphasis added]
Then today, John Edwards took aim. It’s about time Edwards lobbed one in on Iraq.
“Sen. Obama likes to talk about his speech on Iraq years ago, but the truth is he did support past funding requests that only helped prolong this war,” an Edwards spokeswoman, Colleen Murray, said in an e-mail. “The time has come for Sen. Obama to lead and use every tool available to him as a senator and help ensure that this war is not funded again without a firm deadline. For John Edwards, the choice is very simple. It’s time for Congress to stand up to President Bush and make the message very clear — ‘No timeline, no funding. No excuses.’ ”
The other issue is that Clinton, Obama and Edwards blew it when they individually
said there would be no commitment about leaving Iraq before 2013. Yesterday, however, in Obama’s anniversary speech commemorating his 2002 speech on Iraq, he flip flopped from the previous week, now saying he can get all troops out in 16 months, when during the Darmouth debate he said he couldn’t commit to anything before 2013. What a difference a week and some bad press make, huh? I know I’ve posted on this before, but it’s worth noting again.
Yesterday from Obama:
The first thing we have to do is end this war. And the right person to end it is someone who had the judgment to oppose it from the beginning. There is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately. I will remove one or two brigades a month, and get all of our combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.
Obama’s Full Anti-Nukes Speech: Blasts Beltway Establishment
At last week’s Dartmouth debate:
RUSSERT: Will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq?
OBAMA: I think it’s hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible. We don’t know what contingency will be out there.
What I can promise is that if there are still troops in Iraq when I take office — which it appears there may be, unless we can get some of our Republican colleagues to change their mind and cut off funding without a timetable — if there’s no timetable — then I will drastically reduce our presence there to the mission of protecting our embassy, protecting our civilians, and making sure that we’re carrying out counterterrorism activities there.
I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don’t want to make promises, not knowing what the situation’s going to be three or four years out.
But Clinton and Edwards both have stayed firm
on their no pledge statements. Clinton has never been seen by anyone as an anti war candidate, so her stance doesn’t surprise, though it certainly still infuriates many. However, it doesn’t hurt her. Edwards suffers the most, with his decision unfathomable, if you ask me.
Yepsen thinks the frontrunner’s created an opportunity (which could be why Obama has now changed his mind) for the second tier candidates.
That gives those second-tier candidates a chance. That’s because the Democratic
presidential race has essentially been fought to a draw among the three front-runners
in recent weeks. The Clinton-Obama-Edwards camps are deadlocked. Polls show
them in a statistical tie for first place. Nobody’s breaking through.(snip)
On Clinton: “Electability is important here,” Dodd said. He said
the questions about whether Clinton can win are “legitimate, not because
she has created it as such, but I think people want to move on.” He said
there’s a sense “we need to get this behind us.”Dodd also said Clinton’s promise to be a combative general-election candidate
will turn off some voters. “Frankly, the country is tired of fighting,”
he said. “We want to know about succeeding and putting behind the bickering.
Everyone is going to fight hard. But isn’t it time the country came together
and we started solving some of these problems? If it’s just about a fight,
a never-ending fight, the country is so turned off to that.”He noted Obama has served only 24 months in the U.S. Senate – 36 by November
2008, and “you’re going to hear about that. We have major serious issues
around the world. We’re about as isolated a country as we’ve seen in our lifetime.
And this is not just about rhetoric and appealing to people. Knowing how to
do this and bringing people together is critical, and that’s going to be an
issue that will be raised, and I think it’s a legitimate one.”Edwards, too, lacks experience. “This is a serious job,” Dodd said,
one that requires “more than just six years in public life.” …
..
Richardson is the other candidate who could benefit from the no pledge for
2013 from the top three. Honestly, there is just no way to justify it. I don’t
expect anyone to guarantee a quick out at this point, which is why Richardson
just can’t convince me of his plans. But all Democratic candidates should be able to commit
to getting out of Iraq within his or her first term. Let’s face it, if things
would unravel more and unexpected developments would present themselves, no
American would chastise any of them for changing her or his mind. Would they? At the worst they could caveat their 2013 pledge with an unless all hell breaks loose exception. Oh right, we past hell a long time ago.
