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--Former U.N. weapons inspector and ex-U.S. Marine Major Scott Ritter was correct in describing the hearings you chaired during the summer and fall of 2002, from which you were careful to exclude Ritter and other expert witnesses, as a "sham…to provide political cover for a massive military attack on Iraq." What the country needed was an appropriately skeptical Sen. William Fulbright who listened to dissenters after he got burned on Vietnam. Instead, you took unusual pains to ensure that those dissenting on Iraq would not get a fair hearing.
--Ritter: "While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq’s proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament…It is clear that Sen. Biden and his colleagues have no interest in such facts." Indeed, just before the Senate voted to give Bush authorization to attack Iraq, you plagiarized Cheney in assuring your Senate colleagues that Iraq "possesses chemical and biological weapons and is seeking nuclear weapons."
--And why, tell us, Joe, why did you join Sen. John McCain and others in voting against the amendment offered by Sen. Carl Levin that would have forced the president to obtain U.N. Security Council approval before launching war on Iraq?
--Then, in 2007, when your catastrophic misjudgments were obvious and hundreds of thousands were dead and maimed, you borrowed administration rhetoric to "explain" to Russert how "everyone in the world thought Saddam had them [WMD]." That was rank hyperbole. When you added, "The weapons inspectors said he had them," that was a lie.
--Please, no more torturous explanations of the kind you gave Russert; I mean like this one: "It [the resolution] allowed the president to go to war. It did not authorize him to go to it." Come on, Joe. The resolution says: "The president is authorized to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate." Sen. Robert Byrd who, unlike you and other Senate Democrats, had no presidential ambitions, rightly observed at the time that those who "voted for a use-of-force resolution handed a ‘blank check’ to the president."
--When the war/occupation brought bloody chaos, you expressed regret only that the Bush people weren’t doing it right. For example, in 2004 you told Charlie Rose and in 2007 Russert: "If I’d known that they were going to be so incompetent in using it, I would have never, ever given them the authority." So you approve of preemptive war as long as no one botches the job?
--More recently, Joe, you have said of your vote to authorize the war: "It was a mistake. I regret my vote." Pardon the comparison, but you sound like the disgraced Colin Powell, who has expressed regret only for the "blot" on his record. But wait, Joe: "Imagine All the People."
Im-Palin Old JoeIf you do not find my suggestion for confession and repentance morally compelling, Joe, then think of it this way. Your debate partner on Thursday evening will be loaded for bear. I assume you wish to avoid being field dressed.
Ain’t no way out of your dilemma but by making a clean breast of it, Joe. She is going to wave her finger at you and quote your fulsome remarks at length—no stranger she to dangling participles. She will do a John Kerry on you, which worked so well four years ago. You were for the war before you were against it, she will wink. And she will have a field day, if not a field dressing.
I don’t know what your motives were in giving the president permission to attack Iraq—whether it was the neoconservative-cum-Israel-lobby cabal, the Cheney notion that the only way to ensure the supply of foreign oil is to control it, or a calculated move to ensure your viability as a candidate for president (the kind of thinking that turned out to be, deservedly, the kiss of death for Sen. Hillary Clinton). You had more luck, landing on your feet—sort of.
But you are a "grave and growing" danger (so to speak) to the campaign of Sen. Obama; that is, unless you mount a (God forgive me) "preemptive attack." And you have only two days—not ten—in which to prepare. It will not wait for Yom Kippur.
Here’s What You Do……and it makes sense from a practical, as well as a moral, point of view. Forget the natural inclination to try to defend the indefensible on your cheerleading for the war. To claim you were fooled by the administration, after almost 30 years in the Senate is not going to be any more persuasive or exculpatory than to cite what other pressures you may have yielded to.
Here’s an idea that might not have occurred to you, since it involves a practice that has been out of vogue for so long. Shock everyone by telling the truth! (But briefly, please.)
Some suggested text:
Gov. Palin, I feel terrible about the role I played in helping President Bush launch this godforsaken war. I confess; it was a terrible decision. I apologize to you and to other mothers whose children have been sent to Iraq, to the hundreds of thousands who have died and been injured, to all Americans and all Iraqis. And I ask for forgiveness. I have learned a painful but powerful lesson; you can count on me never letting that kind of thing happen again.
Heed Rabbi Lerner’s caution: "Do not mitigate or ‘explain’—just acknowledge and sincerely ask for forgiveness."
Now, Joe, to be quite honest, I cannot guarantee a good result from this kind of approach, since I have no empirical evidence. That is, although I’ve been in Washington 45 years, I’ve not seen unvarnished honesty ever risked in quite this way. But I am guessing it could be quite disarming, and could send your debate partner scurrying for less effective talking points.
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