Moskie

I can agree with you on that Ace. I would just clarify that the President should still bear more, if not most, of the responsibility, simply because he is commander in chief, and members of the House and Senate are not. I do not give members of Congress a free pass either. If I were to list the pros and cons of a particular congressmen, voting for the war would go in the "con" column. It is not irrelevant. But that has less bearing on my overall opinion of them, than it does with the commander in chief. Perhaps that is just a personal preference of mine.

See, I don't believe that engaging Iraq was, definitively, a bad idea. With proper international support and valid exit strategy, getting rid of Saddam and his government would be A Good Thing, for many reasons. But circumstances being what they were, we did not have those going into the war, which is where my disapproval stemmed from the start. But, Bush claimed he could do it, and Congress let him try. It was a political, financial, and diplomatic gamble for all involved, to say the least. And it might be one that has no winners.

The worst part of Bush's speech, though, was the fact that he did very little to convince anyone (or me, at least) that his plan had a probable chance of succeeding. I got the distinct impression that Bush was treating this as a last ditch effort, that could very well not work out. That scares me.

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