Debunking the Clintonian Talking Point About Obama's War Position

[jefferson_dem]

Obama And Bill Duke It Out Over Obama's 2004 War Quote
By Greg Sargent - January 12, 2008, 9:40AM

Yesterday, as part of his racial damage control tour, Bill Clinton took a shot at Obama that he's frequently taken during the campaign, charging that the Illinois Senator's criticism of Hillary's support of the war is disingenuous in light of something Obama said back in 2004.

Bill pointed out that at the time, Obama said that he could not say how he would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate himself in the run-up to the invasion. Bill has repeatedly pointed to this quote to cast doubt on Obama's anti-war bona fides, and it's become part of the conversation of Campaign 2008.

Obama defended himself against this criticism a few days ago, recalling that at the time he didn't want to criticize the war votes of John Kerry and John Edwards in the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign. Obama accused the former president of cherry picking from his past quote:

He keeps on giving half the quote. I was always against the war...obviously I didn’t want to criticize them on the eve of their nomination. So I said, `Well, I don’t know what -- you know, I wasn’t in the Senate. I can’t say for certain what I would have done if I was there. I know that from where I stood the case was not made.’ He always leaves that out.

As it happens, Obama is right. Here is the actual Obama quote in question, from a New York Times article on July 26, 2004 (via Nexis):

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.''

So, clearly, Obama was pointing to the fact that he wasn't in the Senate at the time as a way of tactfully avoiding criticizing his party's presidential and vice-presidential nominees. It's perfectly clear that Obama was in fact against the war at the time. His position then -- as now -- was that the case for war had not been made and that the invasion wasn't justified.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_and_bill_duke_it_out_over_obamas_2004_war_quote.php

[MethuenProgressive]

1. Clearly Triangulating Obama was trying to have it both ways

With more experience he'll make fewer stupid statements that his surrogates will have to apologize for.

[jefferson_dem]

4. Nice spin.

He was being respectful of the party's nominees while standing on his own principled judgement.

I wouldn't expect you to give credit where it's due anyway.

[rodeodance]

12. No matter what Obama's motives were-He did say he did not know what he would have done.

[jefferson_dem]

13. After he said he would not have voted to authorize the war.

Right.

[flpoljunkie]

5. No, Bill Clinton is deliberately twisting Obama's response. Bill knows exactly what's he's doing .

[JVS]

18. Yeah with more experience he'll be able to triangulate by voting for war and then later acting...

like he's against it. :puke:

[MethuenProgressive]

24. He claims he was "always" against it, but voted with HRC on EVERY Iraq War vote

once he entered the Senate. That's DLC Triangulating 101.

[wyldwolf]

30. good way to describe it.

[Evergreen Emerald]

2. what ever. "I don't know what I would have done, I am not privy..."

Spin Spin Spin. MSM has not asked ONE QUESTION.


Obama has said that he is just like Bush on this issue.

spin that.

[jefferson_dem]

7. Apples and oranges.

The "like Bush" comment was regarding the situation after the war had already been authorized by Hillary and launched by Chimpy.

In the end, Obama had more judgment as an IL legislator than your girl had with all those intelligence reports that she didn't read. Deal with it.

[Maribelle]

15. Here we go again with the "didn't read" bunk.

Hillary was throughly briefed by experts on the information contained in the NIE and the summary of the NIE produced by the CIA.

[jefferson_dem]

25. Does she consider Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rummy, Condi, Chimpy, and "Curveball" "experts"?

She didn't read it. She should have. She fucked up.

Hillary chose to put her faith in the hands of the bloodthirsty lot above even after Senator Graham's plea.

--

Sen. Bob Graham's floor statement urging his fellow Senators to read the full classifed NIE. Here is Sen. Graham's statement:

"Friends, I encourage you to read the classified intelligence reports which are much sharper than what is available in declassified form," Sen. Graham reports stating on the floor of the Senate in October 2002.

"We are going to be increasing the threat level against the people of the United States." He warned: "Blood is going to be on your hands."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-boyce/the-iraq-war-vote-was-69_b_50742.html

[Maribelle]

28. What I Knew Before the Invasion by Bob Graham

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html

In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. "ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said.

The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.


The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress.

I, too, presumed the president was being truthful -- until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

In the early fall of 2002, a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry committee, which I co-chaired, was in the final stages of its investigation of what happened before Sept. 11. As the unclassified final report of the inquiry documented, several failures of intelligence contributed to the tragedy. But as of October 2002, 13 months later, the administration was resisting initiating any substantial action to understand, much less fix, those problems.

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.

There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

[sundancekid]

47. so that maker her informed AND gullible on what chimpy would do .... GREAT!

Beware of unintended consequences of unintentional parsing that may lead to inconvient truth ...

[indimuse]

21. So...Where does Obama stand on BOMBING Iran?

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told "the Chicago Tribune on September 26, 2004, 'he big question is going to be, if Iran is resistant to these pressures , including economic sanctions, which I hope will be imposed if they do not cooperate, at what point ... if any, are we going to take military action?'

"He added, 'aunching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in' given the ongoing war in Iraq. 'On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse.' Obama went on to argue that military strikes on Pakistan should not be ruled out if 'violent Islamic extremists' were to 'take over'," Joshua Frank wrote January 22, 2005, for Antiwar.com.<1>

[ellacott]

29. He has been asked about that

He was asked that after he said it in 2004 by Tim Russert on MTP. He was asked again a couple of months ago, again by Tim Russert, on MTP.

[Maribelle]

36. I hate Tim Russert.

But would you know if there is a link to the prgram where Obama answered this? Thanks.

[jefferson_dem]

38. Here's a link.

MM criticizes Russert for doing the same thing Obama critics (including yourself) are doing right here.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711110004

[Maribelle]

44. Your link proves what Clinton said is true

"It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment ... "

[ellacott]

45. Clinton is correct in saying that it wasn't asked in a debate

But it has been asked and he has addressed it. It wasn't a fairy tale. Obama did explain those statements to the media. I think it was a big factor in the timing of Kerry's endorsement.

[jefferson_dem]

46. What are you talking about? Debates are not even mentioned at the link.

The link does demonstrate how Russert and others have been misrepresenting Obama's real position. I guess you're happy to put yourself in that company.

[goldcanyonaz]

3. ''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' ''What would I have done? I don't know"

Well, thanks for clearing that up for us.

:rofl:

[flpoljunkie]

8. Obama's next sentence:"What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made."

''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.'' - Barack Obama

Bill Clinton would be proud of your efforts to distort what Obama said!

[MethuenProgressive]

11. Obama: Hoisted on his own petard.

The delay in response by ObamaNation is due to their frantic Googling of 'hoisted on his own petard' in the vain Hope! that they can somehow accuse me of being a racist for using the phrase.

[HeraldSquare212]

6. Me vs. the Democratic Party...Me vs. the Democratic Party...Me vs. the Democratic Party....

Obama did the right thing for the party nominee, and, of course, Bill distorts and exploits it. It's outrageous that Clinton would attack him for something that Obama did to help the party win the WH and get rid of Bush.

"Me vs. party loyalty....me vs. party loyalty...me vs. party loyalty..." We know how that conversation always ends with the Clintons.

[jefferson_dem]

9. The Clintons aren't too keen on loyalty.

They're "in it to win it" ... at whatever cost.

[ellacott]

31. And that probably was a big factor in Kerry endorsing him n/t

[Politicub]

10. Thanks for clearing that burning question up n/t

[Maribelle]

14. You didn't debunk President Clinton

Please forgive me, but your perception of reality is clouded by Obama's whatever. Early in this primary season I made a brief post about how Obama did not have access to the NIE information the Senate had access to, so he was not in a position at all to judge the votes of the Senators.

Not only did you not debunk President clinton, in fact you've merely proven what Clinton said was true.

It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he has been against the war every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time -- not once -- well, how could you say that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution, you said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war, and you took that speech you're now running on off your Web site in 2004, and there is no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since.

http://facts.hillaryhub.com/


Obama saying now that he he didn't want to criticize the war votes of John Kerry and John Edwards in the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign could be an extremely specious statement at best. He did not have access to the same information, period. My former senator, Bob Graham, was abundently clear on this in the past. Perhaps Obama needs to go face to face with Bob Graham regarding this istead of attempting to make the Clintons look bad. But I would bet Obama is too much the widdle coward.

[sunonmars]

16. The inexperience is showing thorugh

Sorry but he's really proved to have no grasp of handling himself when he gets cornered without a speech or teleprompter, on this basis alone, he'll get slaughtered in debates if he won the nomination.

[NYCGirl]

17. By whom will he be slaughtered in debates? McCain? Huckabee? Romney? NT

[goldcanyonaz]

19. Himself?

[NYCGirl]

23. Huh? NT

[MethuenProgressive]

22. That's a "SwiftBoat" tactic. Don't debunk, just claim you did.

Just like Karl Rove's "debunking" of John Kerry's Vietnam record.

[Maribelle]

27. I agree that Obama is using swiftboat tactics.

He truly needs to throw away those pathetic tactics.

[jefferson_dem]

32. Your post makes no sense.

My post points out that Bill is parsing Obama's statement. He's intentionally leaving out the part where he said he wouldn't support the war. Perhaps your so accustomed to Clintonianspeak, you've lost touch with that bit of reality.

Your former senator Graham voted NO. Your former senator Graham demonstrated responsibility and judgment. Your former senator Graham encouraged his colleagues to read the intelligence reports. Hillary gets no free pass.

[Maribelle]

34. Only because you do not want it to make sense. Try rereading it.

And your attempting to use Graham to support the fact that Obama did not have access to the same information is totally ridiculous; but forgivable.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html


There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

The writer is a former Democratic senator from Florida. He is currently a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics.

[ellacott]

33. He said that already

Because it was answered in a debate didn't mean he never said it.

[Maribelle]

35. Would you have a link to this?

Thanks.

[Skip Intro]

20. Oh please, that is one of at least three quotes from him saying nice things about the war.

He said there wasnt much difference between he and bush on Iraq. Was there some magic context to make those words not really mean what they clearly mean?

He said there was room for disagreement on the IWR. Did he say something just afterward that robbed that statement of all meaning?

He hass taken both positions. He admitted on MTP that the reason he made these comments was for political reasons - he said things he didnt mean for political reasons.

Cant spin away the facts.

[MethuenProgressive]

26. BO's "War Position" - claim you were 'always against it' then vote with HRC on EVERY Iraq War Vote.

Obama's War Postion - I was always against the Iraq War except when I said I didn't know if I was and "always" shouldn't apply to every Iraq War vote I made since joining the Senate.
:crazy:

[goldcanyonaz]

37. Another, against it before he was for it arguement.

[jefferson_dem]

42. Well...Hillary was for it before she was (supposedly) against it.

http://www.alternet.org/audits/70416/

[jefferson_dem]

39. More debunking of Clintonian nonsense: "I think it was a mistake...I think I would have voted no"

...

Further, in a July 24, 2004, interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Obama said that while he "didn't have the information that was available to senators," he would have voted against the Iraq war authorization:

BLITZER: Had you been in the Senate when they had a vote on whether to give the president the authority to go to war, how would you have voted?

OBAMA: You know, I didn't have the information that was available to senators. I know that, as somebody who was thinking about a U.S. Senate race, I think it was a mistake, and I think I would have voted no.

BLITZER: You would have voted no at the time?

OBAMA: That's correct.

BLITZER: Kerry, of course, and Edwards both voted yes.

OBAMA: But keep in mind, I think this is a tough question and a tough call. What I do think is that if you're going to make these tough calls, you have to do so in a transparent way, in an honest way, talk to the American people, trust their judgment.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711110004

[goldcanyonaz]

41. "I think I would have voted no" doesn't say he wouldn't have supported it.

[jefferson_dem]

43. Oh Gawd. His use of "I think" is a disqualifier?

:crazy:

[Sparkly]

40. I'm just really sick of hyperfocusing on 2003.

Yes, I know it's important, but there are many other issues -- in the present and future -- that are perhaps more important!! How foreign policy would be handled starting in 2009 is one of them.

"The case was not made" -- I think they all knew that, which is why Kerry, Clinton, and others who voted for the IWR said at the time it was about inspections, not a rush to invade. They, too, saw the case was not made.

I wish we'd just MOVE ON.