Townhall
When Is a War not a War?
by Mona Charen
Sep 10, 2013

Barack Obama accelerated his political ascent in 2002 by positioning himself firmly as the voice of anti-war Democrats. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards and John Kerry, then-Illinois state Sen. Obama announced that he opposed the effort to topple Saddam Hussein, not because he opposed all wars, but because he resisted what he called "dumb wars."

What was "dumb" about the Iraq War? Sen. Obama didn't say precisely, but he inveighed against "the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats ..."

He said "hacks" like Karl Rove were using war in an attempt to distract the nation from "a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income -- to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression."

In short, Barack Obama gave President Bush and those (including some Democrats) who supported overthrowing Saddam Hussein absolutely no credit for sincerity. To the contrary, he imputed the worst motives to them.

Republicans are being more generous. Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have endorsed the president's call for the use of force against Syria. Former Bush advisors Stephen Hadley and Eric Edelman have agreed to lobby Republicans on Obama's behalf. A number of leading Republicans have penned op-eds supporting this most nakedly partisan of presidents -- though it must feel to them like a bone in the throat...

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