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The Iraq War Vote Test

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Back in 2003, I passed the Iraq war vote test. So did millions of other americans who refused to buy Bush's WMD and Saddam story. I didn't buy Colin Powell's moment of betrayal of America and his personal integrity. Neither did 100+ members of congress.

Now some of those who voted for the war are struggling with how to explain their votes. Well they should be struggling. Why should we trust their judgment and courage now?

Back in 2002, and early 2003, Bush didn't fool me with his WMD threats. Rice's warnings sounded hollow to me. When Colin Powell went before the United Nations and started talking about satellite images and movable laboratories... I knew right then and there that he was full of it, that he had sold out his integrity to follow the Bush party line.

I knew. A lot of other people knew. JOhn Kerry should have known. Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden should have known. If they didn't, they were not paying attention. IF they did know and they still voted FOR the war, then they sold out their constituents and America.

I'd like to see a Democratic presidential candidate who did not vote for the war. I want to see someone who was able to figure it out back then, not someone who made a mistake, not someone who now knows differently, when there was enough information then.

Sorry John Edwards. It's good that you admit you made a mistake, and you're doing better than Hillary, who won't admit it. But you both should have known then that Bush was lying, that COlin Powell had sold out. Millions of Americans went to the streets, trying to tell you. You didn't make a mistake. You made a decision, a bad decision. It is not one I am willing to accept your apology for.

There are candidates who saw what was really happening. I want that kind of person making the big decisions for America. There are candidates who were tough enough to stand up against the tide of pressure to say NO to Bush and to his war. I want that kind of person to be facing the tough choices and the raised voices of power that the president faces, not people who caved, not people who couldn't see through the lies to the real truth.

The Iraq war vote was a really big test. You either passed it or flunked it. It's that simple. It was a test of courage and a test of vision, a test of insight and a test of ability to sift through facts, evidence and then, to make the right decision.

Funny. As I write this, the candidates forum held before AFSCME, in Reno. Dennis Kucinich comes on. He has two minutes. Here's part of what he says, really, as I'm writing this,
"It must be really tough for candidates to come before the American people and claim that they were tricked, deceived, misled... by George Bush."

Kucinich concludes:

"People are looking for a president who has the ability to do the right thing when it matters most.



Mike Gravel, at the same forum, says, "There were tens of millions of americans had the view that we shouldn't invade Iraq."

Later the following morning, I catch some of the beginning of the same forum.

Chris Dodd talks about being about to admit to making mistakes. And he admits he made a mistake.

Hillary Clinton says, "My vote was a sincere vote based on the facts and assurances I had at the time."

(unfortunately, I had to leave, and couldn't watch the other candidates' statements.)

Clearly, my thoughts on this are not alone. There are plenty of candidates who didn't vote for the war. And I wouldn't rule out the possibility of finally supporting one who did, especially if he or she fesses up and faces the failure he or she demonstrated earlier. Edwards saying he made a mistake is just a start.

Just to be clear, at this point, I have not yet chosen a candidate I am getting behind.
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Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

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Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
 

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