Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Mark Udall Blindsided on Iraq Resolution - No Dept. of Peace to the Rescue

Courtesy of Rocky Mountain Right, the blindside on Mark Udall from Monday's debate:

The only question is what hopes Mark Udall had for his Department of Peace to govern our Iraq policy and to protect us from other terrorist dangers.

2 comments:

Alan said...

I, for one, hope Schaffer stays on this deceptive, hypocritical, ultimately self-destructive line of attack for as long as possible. Though that may be a little less likely now that leading conservatives are call it out as pure blathering nonsense, like Rocky Mountain News editor Vince Carroll did yesterday:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/18/carroll-bogus-attack-on-udall/

Republican Bob Schaffer has spent the week suggesting that his opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Udall, is a hypocrite because he sponsored a resolution in 2002 denouncing Saddam Hussein in the strongest terms, stipulating that he possessed a variety of terrible weapons and describing Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The resolution was even billed as a "preliminary authorization for the use of force against Iraq."

If you fail to look closely, you could easily conclude that the supposedly anti-war Udall was actually on the same page as the congressional majority that ultimately did authorize war - and that Udall's vote against their resolution amounted to splitting hairs.

That's rubbish. Schaffer should cut it out.

Udall has never been part of the "see-no-evil" faction of the Democratic left that downplayed Saddam's savagery or denied Iraq's role as a destabilizing force in the Middle East and beyond. He never doubted the tyrant's intentions regarding weapons of mass destruction, or mocked the U.S. goal of regime change.

But Udall did sincerely oppose the resolution that gave the president the green light to topple Saddam. That's a fact, and it's a big deal. Udall did so because he thought the measure gave the president an open-ended right to act whenever and however he liked, thus degrading the constitutional role of Congress, and because he thought it important for the U.S. to secure the support of the United Nations before acting. Otherwise, Udall worried, the U.S. would have a difficult time turning Iraq into a functioning republic.

Udall repeated these themes on the House floor, in public meetings and in correspondence. His own resolution was meant to further those goals, not to catapult us into Operation Iraqi Freedom...


But please, go on with your bad self, Ben. Concede no error, defend the indefensible, excuse naked hypocrisy and deception, ride that sinking ship all the way to the drink.

Ben DeGrow said...

"Concede no error, defend the indefensible, excuse naked hypocrisy and deception, ride that sinking ship all the way to the drink."

Alan, If I were to take this tack, it would only be to imitate one of the most prolific practitioners of this approach: yourself.

But I wouldn't want to excuse the tactical approach you spend so much time honing. If Schaffer is indeed claiming such Udall hypocrisy, he SHOULD cut it out. I'd like to see that in print first, though.

But that would be different than what Schaffer was actually doing rhetorically at the debate - a point I still stand by:

http://schaffervudall.blogspot.com/2008/07/missing-point-of-bob-schaffers-powerful.html

Now will you call Udall out for the misinformation he spews?