I admire Fritz Hollings for being honest about his war vote. Courageous.

[madfloridian]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3860722/

SNIP..."Jan. 2 - A panel offering advice to President Bush and his Democratic rivals had just gotten underway at Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, S.C., when a surprise visitor strode to the podium. It was Sen. Fritz Hollings, South Carolina's senior senator, with a word for the assembled strivers.

Howard Dean is right," declared the silver-haired Hollings, launching into a spirited defense of Dean's assertion that Americans are no safer now that Saddam Hussein has been captured. "Saddam wasn't causing anybody any problem. You have some little smart-aleck announcer on television asking, 'Do you think we're better off with Saddam gone?' What else is gone? We have 456 dead; 11,000 maimed for life, and I don't think it was worth it. I had intended to vote against that resolution , but Rummy and Condi Rice and Cheney said you can't wait until the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud. I thought they had some intelligence, that they knew something."

Thanks, Fritz, for speaking up like that.

[MattNC]

1. one of the last true statesmen n/t

[Elidor]

2. I guess that means stupidity is a virtue as well

Fuck anyone who claims they didn't know better. They did.

[madfloridian]

3. Well, most are still spinning their votes, wouldn't you say?

He walks into a high power meeting, and he speaks out on it. I say that takes courage.

He should not have voted for it, but now he is at least taking responsibility and showing regret.

[dfong63]

4. he admitted he was wrong - that takes guts

... Hollings demonstrated more guts than Kerry, Gep, or Edwards on that score.

[Elidor]

13. A pity I didn't phrase that more diplomatically

Flu makes Hardhead cranky. It was good that he said it. And I still resent all the people who enabled that evil bastard in the White House.

[TacticalPeek]

5. The money thought here is the perfidy of "Rummy and Condi Rice and Cheney"

and their disservice to our government and country. Federal law requires their "good and faithful service", but we got the bad and faithless instead.

[emanymton]

6. Lie To Me Once ...

If you are told your neighbor's house is on fire, you give up your ladder.

You later learn the ladder was used to climb into an area to steal your neighbor's oil.

Your decision to give the ladder was not wrong.

[w13rd0]

11. Perhaps...

...but when your neighbor says his house is on fire, and he needs you to sacrifice your children, ladder and 150 billion to fix it, when it was the boys on his staff that started the fire, and this isn't the first time he's started a fire and asked for the same, when it didn't turn out to be a fire, and never mind that he let one fire happen several months after moving in and let the damn place burn down, then he came over and told us we had to rebuild it, but he STILL doesn't put in a smoke alarm...I mean come on, how much can a neighbor really be expected to sacrifice?

[Tatiana]

7. Hollings has character.

He's conservative, but so are most of the constituents he represents. It took some courage for him to say those words and I thank him for at least acknowledging the mistake that he made.

Now if only other Senators would do the same...

[madfloridian]

8. Yes, to come out and say it in that conservative area.

The rest should not be afraid to speak up.

[auburnblu]

9. Why not say it?

He's not running again, so I think he's got a perfect chance to speak his mind without really any downside.

[wtmusic]

10. He's ahead of the game

It's only a matter of time before others fall in behind him.

[JNelson6563]

12. It was a sad contrast to yesterday

When 7 of the Dems running were given an opportunity to mention something they regretted. None of them regret their IWR vote, even those who may have claimed to have been misled.

Hollings did the right thing.

Julie

[Padraig18]

14. 3 senators had a chance to do the same thing yesterday.

But unlike Sen. Hollings, they lacked the neccessary character to do so. Sad....

[Clark4Prez]

15. Dean IS right on Saddam, we should all say that

I think the only thing Dean might have done differently, (Which he may have and its not in the press reports), was to capitalize that the reason why we are not safer is because Saddam was not a threat.

Even though some pundits tried to paint this as a another "gaffe", it wasn't. Dean was remaining consistent to his reasons for opposing the war, which is not rooted in peacenik idealism, but in pragmatism, you don't fight a war against someone that doesn't attack or threaten you, just because you can "win".