What do the following seventeen people have in common?
Bob Barr
Evan Bayh
Sam Brownback
Hillary Clinton
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Dick Gephardt
Virgil Goode
Fritz Hollings
Duncan Hunter
John Kerry
Joe Lieberman
John McCain
Rick Santorum
Tom Tancredo
Fred Thompson
Joe Biden
- They all were members of Congress.
- They all ran for President. Three of them, Kerry, McCain, and Clinton, garnered their party's nomination.
- None of these seventeen were elected President.
There is one final commonality among these politicians. Each one, whether a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives, voted for House Joint Resolution 114 (107th): Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.
Nine of the seventeen were Democrats who on the most important vote of the past two decades, joined the Republicans in revealing a decided lack of judgement and courage.
They demonstrated their willingness to play politics with the lives of US soldiers and the Iraqi people. They gambled that the invasion would end quickly and successfully, and that those who opposed the invasion would lose any chance of political advancement. They gambled with other peoples lives even though they had to know that the invasion was based on lies and distortions.
These politicians failed the test of character and most have paid the political price. Of course justice can never be served. The demise of the presidential ambitions of these politicians cannot balance the loss of the hundreds of thousands of lives brought on by political cowardice.
Unfortunately when Kerry and Clinton paid the political price, our country also paid an additional price, in the form of George W. Bush's second term and in the election of Donald Trump.
There is one person running for President this year who voted to voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq. If the Democrats nominate Joe Biden, they may again lose the election. Perhaps the Democratic Party has learned what happens when it nominates a candidate who enabled the catastrophic and illegal invasion, but I am not hopeful.