Obama on Iraq in 2002

I think the Democratic race is going to come down to the question "Do people feel Barack Obama can execute on what he promises?" Hillary has made the case that she can do what she is going to set out to do, but it frankly isn't a very ambitious agenda. She's also suggested that Obama is promising too much, which seems like a weak criticism. It is better to promise too much and fall short, than to promise too little and not come close to doing what should be done.

Via the Carpetbagger Report, I came across this extraordinary speech from Barack Obama in 2002 on the war in Iraq.

"I don't oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil. ...

I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is 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, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us 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.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics."