Stop Him Before He Gets More Experience

—

Stop Him Before He Gets More Experience: "The day after the resolution debacle, I spoke with Senator Obama about the war and about his candidacy. Since we talked by phone, I can't swear he was clean, but he was definitely articulate. He doesn't yet sound as completely scripted as his opponents — though some talking-point-itis is creeping in — and he isn't remotely defensive as he shrugs off the race contretemps du jour prompted by his White House run. Not that he's all sweetness and light. 'If the criterion is how long you've been in Washington, then we should just go ahead and assign Joe Biden or Chris Dodd the nomination,' he said. 'What people are looking for is judgment.'

What Mr. Obama did not have to say is that he had the judgment about Iraq that his rivals lacked. As an Illinois state senator with no access to intelligence reports, he recognized in October 2002 that administration claims of Saddam's 'imminent and direct threat to the United States' were hype and foresaw that an American occupation of Iraq would be of 'undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.' Nor can he be pilloried as soft on terrorism by the Cheney-Lieberman axis of neo-McCarthyism. 'I don't oppose all wars,' he said in the same Chicago speech. 'What I am opposed to is a dumb war.'"

(Via NY Times.)