Stephen Colbert has coined the term "truthiness" to denote statements that the speaker would like to believe are true, notwithstanding the fact that the evidence for the claim is limited to the speaker's own picture preference. As the war in Iraq comes up to a couple of milestones--five years duration and 4000 American deaths--it is worthwhile trying to set the record straight on some "truthy" utterances.
This morning, for example, Sen. John Kyl, Republican from Arizona, interviewed by Scott Simon on NPR, said it was "unfair" for Democrats to be beating up Republicans over the vote for war, since "all the Democratic leaders" voted for the resolution authorizing the invasion. And he mentioned specifically Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. He did not mention that the resolutions authorizing war were opposed by many Democrats in both the Senate and House. In the Senate, the vote for the resolution was 77-23, with Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, joining 22 Democrats, including Edward Kennedy, Patrick Leahy (chairman of the judiciary committee), Carl Levin (chairman of the armed services committee), and Bob Graham (chairman of the intelligence committee) in opposition. The vote in the House was closer: 296-133. Of the 133 voting nay, 126 were Democrats, among them Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, John Conyers, Charles Rangel, David Bonior, and John Dingell.
Everyone who at the time represented me in the Congress--Martin Sabo, Mark Dayton, and Paul Wellstone--voted against the war resolution.
Send Kyl an email complaining about his truthiness. While you're at it, let him know that opposing the war in Iraq, and criticizing the incompetent strategy with which it has been waged, is not analogous to carping about details of the D-Day invasion, as he outrageously stated in the NPR nterview.
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