Bob Graham's warning to fellow senators two days before the IWR.

[madfloridian]

I keep remembering the things he said just before the vote. His words never got much attention in the media, and no one paid any attention to him in the Senate. If my memory is correct, the Democrats controlled the Senate in October 2002. We lost control that November. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I only saw this in two papers, the Miami Herald and the Palm Beach Post. I posted about it in 2004.

I remember Bob Graham's rant on October 9, 2002, two days before the IWR vote.

..."On Oct. 9, 2002, Graham — the guy everyone thought of as quiet, mild-mannered, deliberate, conflict-averse — let loose on his Senate colleagues for going along with President Bush's war against Iraq.

"We are locking down on the principle that we have one evil, Saddam Hussein. He is an enormous, gargantuan force, and that's who we're going to go after," Graham said on the floor. "That, frankly, is an erroneous reading of the world. There are many evils out there, a number of which are substantially more competent, particularly in their ability to attack Americans here at home, than Iraq is likely to be in the foreseeable future."

He told his fellow senators that if they didn't recognize that going to war with Iraq without first taking out the actual terrorists would endanger Americans, "then, frankly, my friends — to use a blunt term — the blood's going to be on your hands."

It was a watershed moment. Gone was the meticulous thinker who would talk completely around and through a problem before answering a question about it...

More at the link

I thought of this again today when I reread a post at the DLC archives from 2003. It was warning activists not to compare Iraq to Vietnam, telling them it was time to forget that war....and move on to spreading democracy in the Middle East.

Good Night, Vietnam

The onset of the war in Iraq has created a dilemma for those Democrats who opposed last year's resolution authorizing military force, and this year's decision to use force when the United Nations could not come up with an alternative means of disarming Saddam Hussein.

Former Gov. Howard Dean, whose antiwar rhetoric has made him the unlikely darling of liberal activists in Iowa and elsewhere, has been visibly struggling to criticize the war without appearing to undermine the troops. He vowed not to "personally" attack the president on the war, but has instead continued to attack his Democratic rivals who voted to authorize force.

..."Antiwar Democrats are entitled to their opinions. In fact, we share most of their concerns about the Bush Administration diplomacy that has made the drive to disarm Iraq such a lonely endeavor for the United States and the United Kingdom, without letting those concerns obscure the national interest in toppling Saddam. But antiwar Democrats do not have the right to claim, as Dean often does, that opposing the war is a matter of fidelity to Democratic tradition, or that antiwar Democrats represent "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

..."Some aging baby boomers may continue to view every military conflict as a reprise of the big war of their youth, and some politicians may opportunistically offer them a sort of battleground reenactment of the protests they fondly remember. But for the rest of us, the Vietnam War is long over, and it's time to reassert Democratic internationalism for a new era.

I believe that the term Democratic Internationalism is the "progressive internationalism", which is the nicer way of changing and remapping the Middle East.

[Ress1]

1. Lost control in '94

[Hav]

2. .

But not of the Senate. I think she was right with the 2002 elections.
(Did Jeffords switch in 2001?)

edit: Sorry, in 1994 the R's won the majority in the Senate, too it seems.

[thatsrightimirish]

10. We controlled the senate

Because Jeffords switched.

[madfloridian]

4. We controlled one house of congress in October 2002

when the vote was taken, but I just can't remember which one. Then we lost both in November 2002 I think.

[Pithy Cherub]

3. That is what makes this worse, Democrats

were in charge of the seante and had the power to delay until after the election. Especially since Jim Jeffords switched to Independent throwing the majority to the Democrats. The most powerful speech made by a senator is still Robert Byrd's on all of the myriad reasons it was foolish, unwise, unconstitutional and rushed for the benefit of politics.

[madfloridian]

5. CNN Nov. 2002: Republicans seized control of the Senate, held onto their majority in the House

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/11/06/elec02.main.day/

Wednesday, November 6, 2002 Posted: 7:54 AM EST (1254 GMT)

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a historic night for the GOP and President Bush, Republicans seized control of the Senate, held onto their majority in the House and savored wins in two hot gubernatorial races, CNN projected early Wednesday.

Returns were still coming in early Wednesday morning, but it appeared possible that Republicans could build on the six-seat majority in the House they held going into the elections.

No matter what the margin, Republicans were poised to control both the House and the Senate for the remainder of Bush's first term."

I was right.

[DaveinMD]

6. We held the Senate by one vote

when Jeffords left the Republican Party.

[madfloridian]

7. I thought Jeffords was 04, but I guess you are right.

Now that I think about it.

Now with Lieberman hanging with Republicans on Iraq, maybe some GOP person will join our side.

[Hippo_Tron]

8. Graham's candidacy got no attention in '04

And he couldn't seem to mobilize any support based on his vote against the IWR. Not only that but he was from one of the three big swing states.

[madfloridian]

9. There was a huge field, and he was not pushy or charismatic.

He is a man I have always greatly respected. He is a hawk, very much so in many ways. They should have listened to him.

[madfloridian]

11. Bob Graham wrote an editorial shortly after the IWR vote.

I don't have the original link, but this recent article refers to it.

http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070117/OPINION/201170311/1030/OPINION01

In an op-ed in The Washington Post shortly after the vote, Graham wrote: "I voted against the resolution - not because our nation has nothing to fear from Hussein but because I am convinced that the resolution misstates our national priorities in a dangerous way .�.�. Right now the most urgent threats to our security are posed by the shadowy networks of international terrorist organizations that have the capabilities to repeat the tragedy of Sept. 11 - not Saddam Hussein."

Graham argued that Saddam posed no immediate threat to U.S. security and that an invasion of Iraq would divert attention and resources from the larger war on terrorism in Afghanistan and other places where al-Qaida had training bases.

"If this were 1938," Graham wrote, "the course advocated by the president - and endorsed by Congress - would be the equivalent of the Allies declaring war on Mussolini's Italy but ignoring Hitler's Germany.

[madfloridian]

12. From the article quoting Bob Graham's editorial about Iraq...

It is from Ocala.com in January 2007. The reporter tends to accept no excuses, he seems to differentiate between the kinds of excuses given.

Senators Haul Out Excuses on War Votes

Democrats who supported the war in Iraq before they opposed it have been explaining themselves lately, especially the ones with presidential ambitions.

...."Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York refuses to repent for her pro-war vote. Her only problem with the war apparently is the way it has been mismanaged - a just war bungled by the incompetence of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team.

...."Others Democrats, including Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, say had they known at the time Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, they never would have voted for the resolution authorizing the president to use military force against Iraq.

Of course, no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. But what if they had existed? Knowing how this war has turned out, would Nelson and other "we wuz had" Democrats argue that ridding Iraq of biological and chemical weapons was worth the price we have paid so far - more than 3,000 American soldiers killed, thousands more wounded, $400 billion in treasure and a more volatile Middle East?

Not a bad article...at the end he mentions they should have listened to Bob Graham.