So Why Did Democrats Vote for the War, Anyway?

Lieberman's troubles and the growin influence of progressive bloggers has the establishment Democrats, especially the "Third Way" types of the DLC in a tizzy. Over at Hullabaloo, Digby lays out the argument in a good, long post.

Digby also points out that back in 2002, there was no good reason to vote for using force against Iraq. The Bushies used pyrotechnics to confuse the issue, but reasonable smart Senators should have been able to see through it. Al-Qaeda attacked us. We attacked... Iraq. It's that simply wrong.

So, why did Democrats vote for something so clearly wrong? It wasn't because they were confused, or because they feared a nuclear attack by Iraq (or some agent of Iraq). It's because they feared that invading Iraq would be easy and that if the whole operation had turned out to be the cakewalk that Bush had promised, they didn't want to be the ineffective minority who voted against it in the first place.

Had we stomped Iraq and then seen a democracy quickly flourish as our troops were showered with candy and flowers, the war would have been popular. Now, anyone could have seen that not happening. It's why Colin Powell didn't get Bush's father to march to Baghdad a decade earlier. But... there were those in government who voted for the war out of fear. They didn't want to look like they were too chicken to support a cakewalk.

Well... it wasn't a cakewalk. Time for all Democrats who voted for that resolution to apologize.