Why some Dems are upset about Clark's IWR as "leverage" stmt

[dkf]

For me this hits it exactly on the head

http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/nichols/57492.php

Asked whether he would have voted for the October 2002 congressional resolution that authorized Bush to use military force against Iraq, Clark said, "At the time, I probably would have voted for it ... ." A day later the general said he "would never have voted for this war," but allowed as how he would have voted for the resolution because it provided Bush with "leverage to get a diplomatic solution."

Clark's statements created a firestorm because there are very few Democrats who seriously believe Bush was looking for "leverage" when he pushed that resolution through Congress.

The majority of Democrats in Congress voted against the resolution because they recognized it for what it was: a blank check for a facts-be-damned administration that was determined to start a war. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a critic of the rush to war, used the votes of U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt and Sens. John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards to dismiss those more prominent contenders as insufficiently anti-Bush. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairman Dennis Kucinich and former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Bob Graham, both of whom voted against the use-of-force resolution, got into the race at least in part because they recognized that grass-roots Democrats were furious with Gephardt, Kerry, Lieberman and Edwards.