Rockefeller on IWR "My Vote Was Wrong". Can Kerry say this also now?

[frank frankly]

I would be very very happy to hear Kerry say this loud and clear and often. Thoughts?

-----------------------------

W. Va. Sen. on Iraq: 'My Vote Was Wrong'

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP)--U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller regrets his vote to authorize a war against Iraq.

``If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted against it,'' Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Friday. ``I have admitted that my vote was wrong.''

The Democratic-led Senate approved the war resolution 77-23 on Oct. 11, 2002, one day after the U.S. House approved a similar resolution.

``The decision got made before there was a whole bunch of intelligence,'' said Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. ``I think the intelligence was shaped. And I think the interpretation of the intelligence was shaped.

``We had this feeling we could be welcomed as liberators. Americans don't know history, geography, ethnicity. The administration had no idea of what they were getting into in Iraq. We are not internationalists. We border on being isolationists. We don't know anything about the Middle East.''


http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/National/AP.V7276.AP-Rockefeller-Ira.html

[frank frankly]

1. links to same topic in GD and LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1298361

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x448111

[izzie]

2. My God can a real Sen. have said this? I could not get the site.

I guess if your a s rich as Rockefeller you can say what you think and not care about your job. It is a real breath of fresh air I must say.

[frank frankly]

4. I updated the link, it works now

and if Rockefeller can admit to being "duped", then surely Kerry can.

Rockefeller is as big a geopolitical family as there is.

[AntiCoup2K4]

3. Every last one of them who voted for this shit should admit it was wrong.

But Kerry should have been the first, even before Rockefeller, for two reasons. 1) As the presumptive "leader of the party", it would set the example that others should follow. 2) It would be a step in the right direction for Kerry to prove his intentions in foreign policy are better than Bush's, which is very much in dispute, given the neocon shitbags like Beers and Marshall who are advising him.

[JI7]

5. no, it will take the attention off bush and they will just lie about kerry

as they have always done. rather than report on any explanation he gave for why he said or did something they would just say he was flip flopping and other shit like that. maybe after the election is over then it might be different, but the whores will just attack him now. and i'm guessing they might claim to find wmd in time for elections. fox news already lies and says something was found and people would believe it and the truth wont come out until after the election.

[frank frankly]

7. but couldn't JK say that given what we now know through Clarke, etc

that the vote was wrong because they lied about the intelligence and stovepiped it, etc...?

:shrug:

[JI7]

10. you have to prove all that first

right now it has put the bush administration in the position to have to answer. but nobody has really said they lied, even richard clarke says they aren't lying. he says it is spin.

[frank frankly]

20. i think Dean called it lying on PBS Newshour

the word liar needs to be introduced into our "discussion" of 9/11 and Iraq.

i agree with what you are saying though, J17. i'm never that good at political strategory.

may the truth keep coming out.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[frank frankly]

9. but i think most of the public who believed in the war would relate to him

how can he not say this, is my question...

yes, i do understand the flipflop & weak on defense meme bullshit and if he doesn't say he was wrong, then i guess i'll hope that is why.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JI7]

13. yes, polls STILL show bush as strong on terror

compared to kerry, the polls still show bush as being strong on fighting terrorism.

[Skittles]

16. how exactly is going to war BASED ON LIES

"SOFT ON TERROR"? The occupation of Iraq INCREASES TERRORISM.

[frank frankly]

18. of course they can change the image

heard of wesley clark, mr. balls?

kerry was a lt in viet nam

the repubs are all smoke and mirrors on this and everything else

war in irag DOES NOT EQUAL war on terrorism

never did and never will

peace

[RichM]

8. No, he doesn't have the guts to say it. Plus, he's defended his cowardly

vote for so long that he'll look even more ridiculous, if he suddenly does a 180 on it.

[patricia92243]

12. He should tell the truth. If he really does regret his vote, he should...

say so - loud and clear. If he does not regret his vote, he needs to say that just as loud and just as clear.

People can spot a lie a mile off, and THAT is what makes a person appear to be flip-flopping.

I've always told my kids - no matter what everybody else is doing - you do right. VERY HARD ADVICE TO FOLLOW - even for an adult. But nonetheless is what Kerry needs to do now and in the future.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

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[frank frankly]

21. bye bye, mr. balls

your take on things was very stupid

[jpgray]

15. Don't think it would help Kerry very much to do this.

This will mainly please leftist voters. Leftists who are not already on board with Kerry have likely written him off as the enemy. I don't know if this will convince someone who refuses to vote for Kerry on principle to vote for him--somehow I doubt it. If I were voting 'my beliefs or nothing', it certainly wouldn't change my stance.


It may make leftists already voting for Kerry feel better about their vote, but I somehow doubt that will enter into campaign strategy meetings. :shrug:

[flpoljunkie]

17. Kerry: "We were misled in Iraq" by Walter Pincus, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47283-2004Jan25?language=printer

"We were misled not only in the intelligence but misled in the way that the president took us to war," the Democratic front-runner, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), said when asked on "Fox News Sunday" about Kay's statements. "The president cut off that process . He chose the date to start this war. He said the time for diplomacy is over."

But Kerry also served notice he would focus on Vice President Cheney's role in describing the threat from Hussein during the run-up to the war last spring. He said that Cheney, who took the public lead in describing the threat from Iraq beginning in August 2002, "exaggerated clearly" on several issues. "I know the vice president either misspoke or misled the American people," he said.

"The question is still unanswered as to what Dick Cheney was doing over at the CIA personally in those weeks leading up to the war," Kerry said, referring to several visits the vice president made to directly question the intelligence analysts who wrote reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Cheney has said he was trying to get the facts directly and not trying to pressure analysts to change their views.

<>Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," picked up Kerry's theme. "I think what this administration has done is play politics with intelligence and really lean on the intelligence community to come up with the answers they've sought." The result, Clark said, is "we've damaged our national credibility on this issue of weapons of mass destruction."

______________________________

This is a powerful indictment against the Bush administration by both Kerry and Clark. It does not need to be said by our Democratic nominee-it is only those who do not really support him who demand he recant his vote in this particular way. The vote cannot be taken back. It is Bush who deserves our utter contempt for lying to the American people and the world by saying that "war in Iraq was his last resort"; we know now this was a lie, thanks to Paul O'Neill and now Richard Clarke.

Let us move forward and work hard to remove these corrupt, inept bastards from the White House in November!

[frank frankly]

19. good catch. thank you i missed that

i understand Kerry's strategy, i was just thrilled to hear Rockefeller say it.

thanks

[Democat]

22. No way should he say that!

That would allow the media to blame Kerry instead of Bush for the Iraq war.

The best response is that he made the right vote for the wrong president.

If he apologizes (flip flops) now, he will be destroyed by the right wing media.

23. If he hadn't voted the way he did in the first place

he wouldn't be in this fix now, would he?

I'm afraid there's no way this is going to spin in Kerry's favor at this point.

I understand the hard core leftists who won't vote for him as a result of it. I'm pretty hard core myself, but I'll still vote for him.

I think we should be honest folks. A lot of people knew Bush was lying through his teeth back when the thing came to a vote.

Maybe Kerry didn't. That says something.
Maybe he did. That says something.

Maybe he didn't care and we can take at face value his reasons for voting the way he did. That says something.
Whatever it was then, the vagaries of Presidential politics mean that he can't back off of it now.

[AntiCoup2K4]

24. Kerry can't claim he didn't know Bush was lying!

Kerry supporters are constantly reminding us of all Kerry supposedly has done to bring down the Bush Criminal Empire (even though they obviously haven't been brought down) Therefore, Kerry of all people should know exactly what kind of vile shitbag Junior and the PNAC treasonous scum who surround him truly are, and should have assumed that Bush was lying if his lips were moving. Junior could tell me what time of day it was and I'd check the clock just to make sure. The only honest one in that family is Barney. Probably why Dipfuck dropped the poor dog a few months ago :(

25. He can't?

Sure he can.
Doesn't mean I believe him.:evilgrin:

[BootinUp]

26. Wow, it starts with a trickle

Our Presidential candidate needs cover before he can jump out on a limb.