Right and Wrong, Now and Then

Listened to Phil Donahue on Bob Edwards' radio show this morning, talking about "Body of War," his new antiwar documentary. Donahue reminded me about Robert Byrd's great (if futile) speeches during the debate over the Iraq War resolution, which you can access at the link above. An old man who understood that young men would do the fighting and dying - who remembered the Congress's shameful abdication of its constitutional responsibilities during Vietnam, because he was there for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - who knew that wars cost billions, if not trillions of dollars - and who understood that military power is often the wrong tool. If you never read or heard them, or forgot them, take a look --

(of course, the reptile right dismissed Byrd by reminding us that he'd been a Klansman fifty years ago - which means he can't be right about Iraq - except he was, and is)

Iraqing the Vote: The candidates on their Iraq plans

I thought it would be worthwhile to check out the official campaign websites to see what Clinton, McCain, and Obama were putting down in black and white. There couldn't be a starker contrast - check them out --

Clinton titles her interlinked pages (some with material nearly a year old) "Ending the War in Iraq"

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/iraq/

McCain's (very short - two pages, plus a timeline and links to speeches) is called "Strategy for Victory in Iraq", and one link is to "The McCain Surge"

http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/fdeb03a7-30b0-4ece-8e34-4c7ea83f11d8.htm

Obama's is, perhaps characteristically, the longest - it's called "Turning the Page in Iraq", or alternatively a few lines down, "Obama's Plan to Responsibly End the War in Iraq"

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/IraqFactSheet.pdf

All three strike me as remarkably short on substance - Clinton's especially. But the question remains: what would ANY new president be able to do?