Formerly Anti-War Liberals Now Running As War Hawks
Former liberal and Democratic doves are now sounding like war hawks, thinking this will get them reelected.
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Democrat Kay Hagan didn’t mince words about the Iraq War during her 2008 Senate campaign against Republican Elizabeth Dole.
“We need to get out of Iraq in a responsible way,” Hagan declared in May of that year. “We need to elect leaders who don’t invade countries without planning and stay there without an end.”
Hagan is striking a different chord these days. Locked in a tough reelection battle, the first-term senator boasts that she’s more strongly supportive of airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants than her Republican challenger, Thom Tillis, and says she’s been pressing the Obama administration to arm Syrian rebels since early last year…
Only one vulnerable Senate Democrat voted against that resolution to arm the rebels: Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, who warned that the weapons could fall into the wrong hands.
Every other Democrat facing a viable challenger, including Jeff Merkley in deep-blue Oregon and Al Franken in Minnesota, voted with the 78-member majority. It’s a remarkable turn considering how outspoken each was about bringing the troops home from the Middle East during the 2008 campaign.[su_csky_ad]
rg9rts September 30th, 2014 at 9:22 am
ethics go out the window when election time is coming
R.J. Carter September 30th, 2014 at 9:40 am
There’s only one party when it comes down to the wire: Politician.
mea_mark September 30th, 2014 at 9:54 am
It is the measure of corruption that separates them and makes them stand out from one another. Vote out the most corrupt and vote in the least.
R.J. Carter September 30th, 2014 at 9:57 am
Yep. And that, also, isn’t delineated by so-called party monikers.
Clarence C. Young III September 30th, 2014 at 9:48 am
I remember Nancy Pelosi clearly stating Obama (and other politicians) will promise anything popular during an election and never actually do it. So true. Decades of it and it matters not if the politician is Democrat, Republican or Independent.
Clarence C. Young III September 30th, 2014 at 9:49 am
Good story Alan. Right on the money.
Rusty Shackleford September 30th, 2014 at 10:37 am
You write this article as if “neoliberal warhawk” isn’t the current party line for the Democrats. For fuck’s sake, the two biggest Democratic names in the business (President Obama and soon-to-be-nominee Clinton) are both massive shills for the military industrial complex.
Wayout September 30th, 2014 at 11:19 am
This is only because a liberal black man is now the President. They have got to cover for his gross incompetence. He says the intelligence community was at fault here, yet he fires none of the people he appointed in the first place.
OldLefty September 30th, 2014 at 1:09 pm
Is breaking something and cleaning up the mess the same thing?
Was VietNam the same as WW11?
Was Iraq the same as WW11 or VietNam?
What about Afghanistan?
Skydog2 September 30th, 2014 at 11:31 am
It’ll be interesting to see the rhetoric changes after the election.
tiredoftea September 30th, 2014 at 12:14 pm
Disappointing. Pandering for votes by assenting to war has consequences for the people who will serve in the war zones. None of the politicians who vote for war will serve in it. Most won’t even support the veteran’s who come back with necessary VA services.
OldLefty September 30th, 2014 at 12:50 pm
Ultimately, if they marched into Turkey, we would be bound by treaty to go in.
On the other hand, Turkey is in no hurry to empower the Kurds.
Personally, I think that anyone who is not conflicted is not thinking.
Remember Saul Alinsky;
“I’ve never joined any organization—not even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid
dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism.
One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand
described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’
If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated.
The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and
political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to the
Communist purges and Nazi genocide. “
1972 interview