February 17, 2008 at 10:53:31

Obama Deserves Credit for Being Against the War from the Start

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By Paul Levinson (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Paul Levinson - Writer

I came across this odd point in a blog post - Why I'm for Hillary and not Obama - yesterday: "On the issue of Iraq, again there are only a few variations on the same stance. Let us dispense with the fact that Hillary voted to give authorization for the war."

I don't see why we should dispense with that fact.

Hillary, and everyone in my immediate family including me, was wrong about this. The only opposition I heard back then was from a wise brother-in-law in Boston.

Obama was right.

Why should he not get the credit?

I was concerned that the war was not declared, as required by our Constitution. I think it's dangerous and destructive of our democracy that we have gone to war so many times since World War II without a Declaration of War.

But I would have urged my representatives in New York to vote for a Declaration of War, had it been presented at the time. I live near New York City, I work in New York City, and I'm still affected by September 11. I was all too ready to believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Most people in the country felt the same.

But Barack Obama was able to see through and beyond that. (Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich deserve credit for this, too.)

Clinton and Obama indeed have similar records and positions on most issues. But this difference on authorizing the war in Iraq needs to be highlighted, and should be kept in mind by all voters.

http://paulevinson.blogspot.com

Paul Levinson's The Silk Code won the 2000 Locus Award for Best First Novel. He has since published Borrowed Tides (2001),The Consciousness Plague (2002), The Pixel Eye (2003), and The Plot To Save Socrates (2006). His science fiction and (more...)

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