Last week I went 'back and forth' in a thread with several people who felt that Clinton's vote on the AUMF removed her from consideration for their vote and ultimately doomed her candidacy. Obama has clearly distinguished his position from hers in this campaign based on his 2002 opposition to the war. Further some supporters in the thread I reference endorse his votes to continue funding of the war, one stating starkly...
However, since the war HAD been waged, the ensuing funding was NOT an option because that funding was NOT about supporting Bush and/or the war, it was about supporting the TROOPS.
Damn it, it's SO simple and it has driven me nuts for the past nearly half a decade that we've been in this war explaining this which should be so incredibly easy to understand to so many who are so incredibly DENSE.
"NO WAR = NO FUNDING FOR THAT WAR."
Now...I am not writing this because I was called 'incredibly DENSE'...I've been called worse...however, I think we were close to making some progress...when unfortunately the thread came to an end.
In the last debate I recall Hillary identifying areas of common ground between the two candidates...I just don't know why she didn't also refer to their views on the war.
To save time I will post a part of my reply to the poster who reached conclusions about my mass per unit volume (density).
Access to the fuller discussion is here:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Here is the post
Alternatively...no funding == no war
Anyway...because you say it is so simple I will go through this quickly.
In 2002 Obama spoke out against the war... in that speech he said:
Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work
http://en.wikisource.org/...
However ..the chief inspector Hans Blix believed, based on his previous interactions with Saddam, that inspections would not be meaningful absent the threat of force...and yes he expressed his opinion prior to the AUMF vote.
Some quotes from his book and discussion of it are here.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/...
Here is a little bit of it.
In summary, Hans Blix, certainly no fan of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, repeatedly explains that a credible threat of force against Iraq was critical to get inspectors back into Iraq under conditions that were set by the UN (not by Iraq). He says "I did not see that increasing military pressure and readiness for armed action necessarily excluded a desire for a peaceful solution"
And of course this latter point was the view of Kerry, Clinton and others.
There has been a lot of back and forth regarding Obama's access to intelligence reports and whether he would have voted differently if he had known differently...however let's ignore all that...and just lay out this simpler question...
Given Obama's policy objective of having an effective inspections regime, might he have voted differently if he had a chance to talk to Blix about the realities of dealing with Saddam Hussein on this issue?
One would hope he would have taken the views of someone with Blix's experience and expertise quite seriously...(and would in the future if he is president)
So yes it is simple...as Josh Marshall noted...you'd have to be obtuse not to recognize that supporting the AUMF was consistent with wanting inspections to go forward in order to achieve a peaceful resolution to the situation.
But many fans of Obama's rhetoric sneer at the statements of those who on the Senate floor at the time expressed their views on the difficult decision they had to make (and of course that he did not have to make) and on what they were trying to accomplish with their votes.
Veering off topic a bit, Obama himself will scale up and down the vehemence with which he criticizes those who voted for the AUMF...
There's more but you can check if it interests you because it does veer of the main point I want to make.
Clinton, disappointingly, has pulled a Kerry...Kerry did not respond to the 'I was for it before I was against' comment and it painted him for the whole campaign...he could have easily said...'there were two bills, one was a good one and one was a bad one'...perhaps he thought none of us had watched 'schoolhouse rock'
Anyway it seems...Hillary can and should say that she and Obama shared the same goal...a strong inspection regime..but that he did not have the full information on how best to implement it...
The votes for continued funding (i.e. the commonality of their records since he joined the Senate) are of course another point of common ground. But the argument that ...since the war has begun...it is incumbent for them to support 'it'..despite my denseness, I disagree.
That view...completely swallows the Bush rhetoric on 'supporting the troops'? though consistent with the 'zeitgeist' it represents political cowardice by both...
Certainly at some point they both came around to the alternative view...though so far with little effect..except on the common rhetoric of their campaigns to work to end the war.