Seven Years On.
At the time, those of us who opposed the Iraq war were portrayed as supporters of Saddam Hussein. Now, seven years into that dreadful and utterly unnecessary conflict, we are told that many Republicans now think that the war was "a dreadful mistake".
When asked to give a percentage, we hear this:Yesterday, the libertarian Cato Institute hosted a panel discussion on conservatism and the war in Afghanistan with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Rep. John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN). When the conversation shifted to the war in Iraq, Rohrabacher said that “once President Bush decided to go into Iraq, I thought it was a mistake because we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan,” but that once Bush “decided to go in,” he “felt compelled” to “back him up.” He then added that “the decision to go in, in retrospect, almost all of us think that was a horrible mistake.”
Moderator Grover Norquist then asked Rohrabacher to provide a “guesstimate percentage of Republicans in Congress who would share that view — not that they opposed the President at the time, but today looking back.” Rohrabacher replied that “everybody I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now”:
ROHRABACHER: Well, now that we know that it cost a trillion dollars and all of these years and all of these lives and all of this blood, uh, I don’t know many…
NORQUIST: Looking for a number. Two-thirds? One-third?
ROHRABACHER: I, I can’t. All I can say is the people, everybody I know thinks it was a mistake to go in now.
NORQUIST: That’s 100 percent.
NORQUIST: Of Republicans in Congress, who would agree with the general analysis here that it was a mistake and/or we should go in.I can only presume that most of them simply aren't brave enough to voice that opinion in public. And yet, seven years ago we were the people who were being called cowards.
MCCLINTOCK: I think everyone would agree Iraq was a mistake.
NORQUIST: Two hundred percents. Ok, we’re going to average these.
MCCLINTOCK: And, you know, again, I think virtually everyone would agree going into Afghanistan the way we did was a mistake. How many share my, my cynicism over this idea of a resolution of force, which I can’t find anywhere in the Constitution. And how many believe that in those rare cases where we go in, we put all of our resources behind our soldiers, I would say certainly more than half of the Republican caucus probably believe that.
Watch it here.
2 comments:
"I can only presume that most of them simply aren't brave enough to voice that opinion in public."
No, more like their party is no longer in power, and their man is no longer commander-in-chief.
Shouldn't they wish, under those circumstances, to do what this lot are doing and to distance themselves from the catastrophe?
They aren't even brave enough to tell the truth when it would be to their advantage to do so.
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