Why can't folks who voted for this dumb war take full responsiblity for their actions? I don't get the full twisting in the wind to deflect criticism for a bone-headed decision. Just admit you were wrong and move on. Case closed.
On Meet the Press this morning, John Edwards had this to say:
MR. RUSSERT: Why were you so wrong?
SEN. EDWARDS: For the same reason a lot of people were wrong. You know, we—the intelligence information that we got was wrong. I mean, tragically wrong. On top of that I’d—beyond that, I went back to former Clinton administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam’s weapon—weapons programs. They were also wrong. And, based on that, I made the wrong judgment. I, I, I want to go another step, though, because I think this is more than just weapons of mass destruction. I mean, I—at the—I remember vividly what I was thinking about at the time. It was, first, I was convinced he had weapons of mass destruction. That’s turned out to be completely wrong and false. I had internal conflict because I was worried about what George Bush would do. I didn’t have—I didn’t have confidence about him doing the work that needed to be done with the international community, the lead-up to a potential invasion in Iraq. I didn’t know, in fairness, that he would be as incompetent as he’s been in the administration of the war. But I had—there were at least two things going on. It wasn’t just the weapons of mass destruction I was wrong about. It’s become absolutely clear—and I’m very critical of myself for this—become absolutely clear, looking back, that I should not have given this president this authority.
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MR. RUSSERT: But it seems as if, as a member of the intelligence committee, you just got it dead wrong, and that you even ignored some caveats and ignored people who were urging caution.
SEN. EDWARDS: Well, I, I, I would—first of all, I don’t want to defend this. Let me be really clear about this. I think anybody who wants to be president of the United States has got to be honest and open, be willing to admit when they’ve done things wrong. One of the things, unfortunately, that’s happened in Iraq is we’ve had a president who was completely unmoving, wouldn’t change course, wouldn’t take any responsibility or admit that he’d made any mistakes. And I think America, in fact the world has paid a huge price for that. So I accept my responsibility. I’m not defending what I did. Because what happened was the information that we got on the intelligence committee was, was relatively consistent with what I was getting from former Clinton administration officials. I told you a few minutes ago I was concerned about giving this president the authority, and I turned out to be wrong about that.
Edwards was trying to deflect responsibility for his Iraq War vote from himself, in either case. Edwards was on the Senate Intelligence Committee with Bob Graham and should have known better. Bob Graham voted against this war. What about Feingold, Kennedy, and others who heard what Clinton administration officias were saying but also listened to others as well and voted against the war? John Edwards had the same information as all of the others who voted against the IWR but through faulty judgement of HIS OWN, he jumped on the bandwagon and was a big supporter, as SHOWN in the MTP clips today. Trying to lay any blame on the Clinton administration only made him look worse. Bush and Bush alone created this mess and for Edwards to try and soft pedal his vote for the war as somehow the responsibility of the Clinton administration is pure, unadulterated pandering.