it s a big open question how this is going to go down. it s a big open question what the vote count will ultimately look like, if it passes, how thin the margin is or not or probably based on the sources i m talking to here, if the vote goes forward and loses again most likely scenario, how big is the loss? and in the hallway i think i can sum up a conversation with a veteran republican lawmaker with so many of his republicans in the house certainly have not been here long enough to take a really consequential vote that matters to them but also matters to somebody in their own party in the white house and with what the lawmaker said to me wolf is let s see how they feel standing on the house floor and they have their name up and if they want
you got in çóiraq. he never really talked about the people in hospitals now either. it s not a question of exhaustion. thisñi isn t really about the american people s disgust with ten years of war there. the question now is what rationale is there for what we want to do? the american people would be willing to accept some level of involve arement in an international context if it were honestly explained to them what the heck is at stake here? when the president says we are not going to play whack a mole in the region that isn t helpful either. what are we about here? are let s have a real discussion of it. we never really had it in a broad-based way a decade ago. now is the time if we are going to do anything long range in that region. and dick cheney wants to short circuit the debate.
in line in the republican party which is what gives rand paul and people like him a chance to really have an impact this time around. let s look at this interesting conversation yesterday. senator paul gave a personal answer to david gregory s question on meet the press about the u.s. role in iraq.ñi this is a great back and forth. do you see a clear cut american interest in iraq? i look at it on a personal basis. i ask if i want to send one of my sons or your son to fight. yeah, these are nasty terrorists, shouldn t we want to kill them. but who should want to stop them more? maybe the people who live there. the shiites, the malaki government. should not they stand up? if they areñi ripping off the uniforms and fleeing? if they don t think mousul is worth saving how do icon vince my son or yours to die for it? i m not sure where the clear cut american interest is. pretty sound response.
it s not about the grand ideas about remaking the middle east and the theoretical abstractions that the neo-cons and others pushed for years. do you want your son to die for this? we lost 4500 american men and women. over 200,000 dead iraqis. there is a real exhaustion. we have seen the cost for the exercise to go in led by people who would say there is noen reason to worry. funny that dick cheney never asked this question of himself. maybe during the vietnam war which he supported he had five deferments. there is a basic divide here. between people who see war and foreign policy as a giant chessboard the to move around the pieces. i don t usually agree with rand paul, but those who see it in human cost and advantages. that s what we are seeing here. dick cheney will never talk about what you paid to get what you got in iraq. he never really talked about the people in hospitals now either. it s not a question of exhaustion. this isn t really about the
we are not in iraq because of 9/11. he s back to the same bag of tricks. conflating the war in iraq with a response to 9/11. wmds, a connection with al qaeda. all that disproven. i m surprised his people let him go on tv to talk this way. he s delusional. we re not booking him. somebody keeps booking him.çó he and wolfowitz and these guys get regular bookings. let s get to the fundamental question. it seems the republican party is doing something it never did in 2004. when%áu had any time ron paul dared to question he was practically booed off the stage. rudy giuliani would be like a vampire going at him. better late than never. republicans are havingñi the debate they didn t care are have in the early parts of the last decade.ñi dick cheney didn t answer the questions there. they were implicit in rand paul s critique.