Res. 1441 and the Iraq Liberation Act may have given Bush the legal authority to invade Iraq, but that does not mean it was a good decision to do so. I never asserted that the war was illegal, merely that it was an unwise decision.

The “antiwar crowd” may not have cared about Saddam’s atrocities, but I fail to see what that has to do with whether the invasion was in the U.S.’s best interests. If we’re going to play the “Your side doesn’t care about human rights game,” I could point out that, with a few exceptions, the pro-war crowd was silent on Rwanda, and doesn’t seem to care much about Sudan, or North Korea for that matter. I certainly don’t see many who supported the war advocating that those countries should be invaded. Hussein’s human rights abuses seem to be a post-facto justification, clung to after WMD and al-Qaeda ally rationales evaporated. If you think the U.S. should stop all large-scale human rights violations worldwide, that’s certainly a defensible position, it’s just not the position that the Bush administration and the bulk of Iraq war supporters have taken.

He came in with a neo-isolationist foreign policy, and wanted to concentrate on domestic issues. He wasn’t that far off from Bush 41 either, recall the Peace Dividend was bruited about by both Parties and Clinton cut the military only a bit more than Bush 41 proposed. It was the end of the Cold War and both Parties saw spending opps for their favored pork barrel projects.

The problem with Clinton was that he was, by modern standards, an extraordinarily weak President. Hillary had far too much influence over appointments and policies, because of his philandering. Hence the tone deaf Hillarycare instead of real, bipartisan action when Clinton had maximum political capital. That Clinton did not have a majority merely a plurality didn’t help either. Janet Reno neatly encapsulates the weakness of Clinton. Hillary and others (NOW, Emily’s List) who’s support Clinton needed demanded a women AG, after Kimba Wood and Zoe Baird, the baton was passed to Reno and she had essentially a sinecure, despite her near total incompetence.

If you look at what Clarke and others have said, the military post-Mogadishu turned on Clinton, partly because he was risk-avoiding to the extreme and partly because he allowed clueless civilians to micro-manage military operations (no tanks, no air cover, over-reliance on Special Ops) and it got people killed for no good reason. Thus even though Clinton and others in his Admin recognized the dangers of Al Qaeda having terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, he was not able to deal with them. The military basically came back with an extended middle finger (tens of thousands of troops needed and massive casualty estimates) when it was suggested that the camps be taken out. Essentially, the Powell Doctrine on steroids.

Clinton was too weak to make his policies stick in the Pentagon, hence the cruise missile attacks and not much else in Afghanistan; bombing but no ground troops in Kosovo and Iraq. Les Aspin and Cohen pretty much speak to the weakness of the Party in general when it comes to Defense/Security issues.

Part of Clinton’s weakness was aggravated by his refusal to spend political capital in foreign affairs, but he came in weak, with Cabinet members, the First Lady, and various interest groups wielding far too much power.

To Bush’s credit, he realized that 9/11 mandated a complete turnabout in HIS neo-isolationist foreign policy (remember a “humbler” nation abroad) and made his policies stick in the Pentagon and elsewhere, even at the cost of considerable political capital.

Clinton seems to appreciate this, as well as Bush 43′s approach to break down the special interest strangleholds on policy that hamstrung Clinton.

The point is what does Iraqi Liberation Act mean? When the president of the US says that it is our national policy to remove a dictator from power because he is a threat to our country does it not follow that that might mean that some day it will be necessary to remove said dictator from power?

When the UN Security Council signed Resolution 1441, it was a mandatory or force resoltuion which according to UN charter is to be enforced by all means necessary, there was also the added attachment stating that there would be severe consequences if the Resolution was not complied with. I have read the resolution and there is no doubt that Saddam and his regime were in violation of said resolution.

As for my remarks about Bush I was just pointing out the fact that he had apparently read the Iraqi Liberation Act and the UN resolutions and knew what they said which is more than can be said for many of his detractors.

For eyars the US had spent billions of dollars and maintained a base in Saudi Arabia for the purpose of flying no fly zones over Iraq and they in turn shot at our planes.

Now my point about Clinton is that he said Bush did the right thing. He might not agree with the way he did everything, but he supported his actions.

As far as Iraq being a mess, it was a mess when Saddam put 13,000 dead children in one grave. It was a mess when he raped and pillaged and plundered and murdered and gassed the population. The fact that you did not have to see it on the evening news because the folks at CNN had decided that access was more important than truth does not change that fact that Iraq has been a mess for years.

And the anti war crowd did not give a rat’s ass.

Your comment is very interesting but none of your assertions contradict what I said.

Surely you can see the distinction between occasional bombings coupled with an essentially meaningless legislative enactment and a war that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of American and Iraqi. Whatever Clinton said about Iraq, the fact remains that he, like Bush pere, refrained from committing the military to an indeterminate occupation of Iraq.

Your averment about Moore is simply a non sequitur, since I didn’t mention him. Just as I don’t use Chalabi to smear everyone who supports the war, I wouldn’t expect a fair-minded person to lump everyone who questions the wisdom of the invasion in with Michael Moore.

Whether Bush is “a lot smarter than” unnamed “people” give him credit for is an assertion too vague to merit debate. If someone makes a series of bad and avoidable mistakes, with serious consequences, that person is out of his depth, and I don’t really care whether the mistakes decisions were a result of stupidity, ignorance, ideology, bad judgment, or something else.

Clinton supported going into Iraq and in fact in 1998 launched Operation Desert Fox and bombed Baghdad and wrote and passed the Iraqi Liberation Act in the same year.

He said that not only did Saddam have weapons of mass destruction, Clonton guaranteed us he would use them. I remember him saying those very words.

In an effort to trash Bush Democrats have tried to revise the 90′s ala Michael [the propaganda artist] Moore and convince us that Bush somehow dreamed up the War on Terror. Typical right wing scare mongering doncha know.

Clinton has for his part steadfastly maintained that AlQueda is a threat to the US and that he believed Saddam was as well. In the view of many Democrats those are views held only by the chimp moron Bush and his right wing minions and so they have tried to pretend Clinton was a lot further left that he was, or have just ignored the obvious.

The right wing on the other hand has been too angry with Clinton for not taking more aggressive action against the terrorists a decade ago to really appreciate the moral support he offers Bush today.

Bush is a lot smarter than people give him credit for and this simple minded knee jerk out of his depth line just illustrates that you are not as informed as you think you are.

Apparently “reform” is synonymous with “destruction” ’round these parts. And what’s Bush done to “reform” health care, aside from a creating a massive entitlement and plans to create a federal shield for malpractice defendants?

The mess in Iraq is not the same thing as fighting terrorism, Simon’s glib conflation of the two notwithstanding. I’ll gladly take wading in the shallow end of the policy pool over drowning in the deep end, thank you very much.

The problem with Clinton is not his intelligence, he is undoubtably smart, it’s not his political skills, they are there in abundance, it’s his narcissim and ego. All of his skills were used to keep himself in power and so he could go from hyper-liberal to moderate to conservative at the drop of a hat. Any principles or political goals could be dismissed when the practical needs of keeping his job came up. All politicians display this tendency at times during their administrations but Clinton took this style to a new height. His lack of shame shows the lack of soul.

Now there’s a laugh. Clinton was the most conservative Democratic president since Cleveland.

A perfectly defensible political spectrum which would render the offending Newsweek description accurate:

I support/oppose [insert person/policy here] because President Bush/Clinton is for/against him/her/it and President Bush/Clinton is trying to preserve/destroy the country and all it stands for. Those who are not supporting/opposing President Bush/Clinton are either fascist (objectively if you like) or delusional. That’s my unbiased view. Oh, you want talking points?