Wednesday, June 14, 2006
On the Road to 2008: The Shadow of Iraq
Democrats dithering * Karl Rove
As the Democrats gathered in the nation's capital for Take Back America Conference, the war in Iraq cast its long shadow. Democratic leaders, including Hillary Clinton, who supported the decision to go to war, are scrambling to clarify their position. Not easy. As the saying goes "You can't have your cake and eat it too". Dan Balz in the Post: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) drew boos and hisses from an audience of liberal activists yesterday as she defended her opposition to a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, and later she received an implicit rebuke from Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) for failing to acknowledge that her support for the war was a mistake. "
- Clinton and Kerry supported the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war. Kerry recently renounced that vote, but Clinton has never done so. She finds herself in opposition to a majority of Democratic activists and is the target of passionate criticism from some of them.
- Clinton won repeated applause through most of her speech, which dealt at length with domestic issues but also sharply criticized President Bush's handling of the war. But the audience turned against her when, in what she called a difficult conversation, she restated her long-standing position about timetables for withdrawing U.S forces.
It is official. Karl Rove will not be indicted in the CIA leak investigation. One can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the White House. "Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald told Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, in a short letter delivered Monday afternoon that he "does not anticipate seeking charges" against Rove in the case, Luskin said. Rove was told about 4 p.m. while aboard a Southwest Airlines flight en route to a campaign speech in New Hampshire, but he waited until early yesterday morning to publicly reveal the news."
