From: Ad 

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=20949

An interesting take which I have to say mirrors a view I have held for a
while (reinforced since the last US congressional election).

I was not surprised & yet mildly disturbed by the post 9-11 cowardice
shown by almost all US legislators (& indeed UK tories) but I thought
"Never mind coz this'll come back to bite em".

&.....

"Slowly, very slowly, Hillary Clinton's vote to invade Iraq is turning
into a political horror story. It is the moldering hand of a murder victim
coming out of the grave to grab her by the ankle.

Bodies would not be jumping out at the candidate of the money wing of the
Democratic Party if she had only said she made a mistake in voting for the
war, but she has refused to do that so often that if she did it now she
would open herself up to a chorus of catcalls.

She may be concerned that a retraction will make her look weak. So her line
of defense has been, "My vote was a sincere vote based on the facts
and assurances that I had at the time." She says it over and over
again.

The facts she had and the facts she could have had before she cast her vote
for the war are two different things. We learn that from an article in The
New York Times Magazine by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.

These two, who have made a career out of investigating Hillary, have dug up
a couple of facts the Senator is going to have a hard time ignoring. The
big fact is that she had access at the time to a highly classified report,
the National Intelligence Estimate, which contained authoritative doubts
that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Gerth and Van Natta have established that she did not read this report.
Because it was classified, senators wishing to read it had to sign in, and
Hillary did not. Although one of her Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham,
then chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, urged Hillary and all the
other Democratic senators to read it, few did. Graham, however, read the
ninety-page document and was so shaken by the questionable evidence for the
existence of WMDs that he voted against going to war."

Strikes me as a lovely example of "deniability" i.e. as the
article puts it:

"The facts she had and the facts she could have had before she cast
her vote for the war are two different things"

At least Edwards has had the good grace to state up front that his vote in
favour was a mistake but given the anti-war mood consider the 3 front
runners:

Obama - voted against.
Edwards - voted for but accepts it was a mistake. Clinton - voted for but
is trying to blame all others rather than accept she made a mistake.

So...which gives off the best perfume....?

Adam

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