What is rarely, if ever, addressed by the opponents of President Bush and the current war is whether or not the decision he made was a correct one if everything we thought about the status of Saddam’s WMD capability had been correct. Dick Cheney made the argument for the decision in at least one speech around the time of the release of the Kay report. In that speech he argued that knowing what we knew then, and looking at it in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, it would have been irresponsible NOT to have invaded Iraq. Republicans who fail to make that case, and instead weaken their stance on the war in reaction to declining public opinion polls, risk losing the advantage they have long held over Democrats on issues of national security and defense. Even many of those voters who have not supported the Iraq war and view President Bush as a trigger happy cowboy are likely to prefer a candidate that supports the war – even if there are some reservations about the way the war was executed – to one who originally supported it only to back down when the going got tough.
It is still entirely possible, though, that Democrats will decide to bow to their anti-war element and choose a candidate who never supported the war at all. Mickey Kaus recently made the observation that all of Hillary Clinton’s planning did not prepare her for the situation that now exists in the Democratic party. “The same press drumbeat of defeatism about Iraq that has helped bring down Bush's numbers has also emboldened the party's mainstream left base (i.e., not just MoveOn or the DailyKos crowd). They hardly care whether Hillary is a member of the DLC. But they do not want to support someone who voted for the war, as Hillary did. Worse, they want a Democrat who is willing to break from the respectable Beltway Tough-It-Out Consensus now, publicly, in a way Hillary has been unable to do. They're so desperate for a champion they're even temporarily captivated by Sen. Hagel's mere mention of "Vietnam." Hagel/Dean for America! Or maybe Hagel/Gingrich. ...”
I believe the poll numbers we are seeing now on Iraq will improve as a result of upcoming events such as the vote for the Iraqi constitution and the trial of Saddam Hussein. But if they do not, those on the Left may be emboldened enough by Bush’s declining poll numbers, and specifically by declining support for the mission in Iraq, that a Hillary Clinton nomination, once thought by many to be a done deal, could be in serious question. If it is, the argument over the original decision to invade Iraq will be more relevant than ever, and that is why Republicans should start now to set the record straight.
Lorie Byrd lives in North Carolina where she worked as a litigation paralegal before becoming a stay-at-home to her two daughters six years ago. She has written on political matters at the group blog, Polipundit (http://polipundit.com), since April 2004. She also writes at her own weblog, Byrd Droppings (http://byrddroppings.typepad.com), and is currently a contributor at ConfirmThem.com (http://confirmthem.com) and MediaSlander.com (http://mediaslander.com).