Eloquently and pointedly said, Tim Grieve. Thank you! Well done!

I couldn't agree more with your conclusion; not only was this an empty message, but the President couldn't have picked a much more inappropriate day for it. What was the message we didn't hear on Veteran's Day? We didn't hear the President's plan for "winning" the war and insuring that no more young men and women die. We didn't hear his plan for boosting Veteran's benefits and honoring their service. We didn't hear his plan for taking care of the families of fallen Iraqi soldiers or making sure they have the equipment and leadership not to fall in the first place.

A couple of years ago, my grandfather died at age 87, and a Marine Corps honor guard came to his burial site to give a final tribute to a fellow soldier. I saw a Marine officer openly weep for a man he never knew, a man whose service to this country was finished before that officer was even born. Wouldn't it be refreshing to see our President shed even one tear for the over 2,000 young men and women who have died for his misguided mission, and wouldn't today have been the perfect day to do it?

It is important to shift the conversation from the fact that the Democrats (to their shame) who voted for the war authorization had access to the same intel as the White House. What is entirely lost is the fact that the vote was not for the war (although anyone voting for it should have known it to be inevitable, given Bush was in charge), but for the *possibility* of the use of force.

After the vote, Saddam opened up the country to inspections, and there were 100s of inspectors running around, finding nothing. To the extent that people saw the years without inspections as a potential threat, this development should have allayed those concerns. In this respect, the war authorization did what it was supposed to do - it addressed the "unknown" threat resulting from no inspections since 1998. What right thinking person would have expected that with 100s of inspectors running around the country, and - more importantly - finding *nothing* - that the person authorized to use force as a last resort, would still launch a full-scale attack under the premise that there was an immediate threat?

Stop saying that the vote was a vote for war. It wasn't, at least technnically speaking.

The President's Veteran's Day Speech actually made me physically ill. Supporting our veterans is (or at least should be) a non-partisan issue. How dare he turn Veteran's Day into a plug for his policies in Iraq and a chance to denounce the war's critics as unpatriotic. It's disgusting. And FYI Mr. President: some veterans are actually against the Iraq War. Does this make them unpatriotic, too? Shame on you Mr. President.

What exactly is his argument here? It's the Democrats fault because they let me lie?

"Look Amerka, I obviously can't be, you know, trusted. In other words, people really shouldn't listen what I say. I'm not quite bright enough to draw the right conclusions, and then when I draw my conclusions, I lie about it. Democrats should have known that, but they didn't, so there's no point in going over all those old lies now."

I really hope the American people are smart enough to finally see through it.

I didn't buy the President's "evidence" of WMD when he first tried to pitch it to the American Public, and boy did I get more than an earful from a lot of people for it. I feel vindicated now that the majority of people (according to the polls) are now finally agreeing with me.But what took everyone so long? And I agree that the vote was for possible use of force, not a vote for war, and I also agree that the Dems should have seen it coming. It's so hard being right all the time!

sorry for the run-on sentences.

I wouldn't be so quick to let the Republicrats off the hook. Intelligent members of Congress like Dennis Kucinich were able to see through the lies of DerBu$hler. Paul Wellstone saw the truth and voted against the war...and died soon afterward...

The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was also passed by Congress which led to the U.S. taking over the war in Viet Nam. As we all now know, there was no Gulf of Tonkin incident. President Johnson and his advisors lied to the Congress and the American people. I don't recall anyone in the Johnson administration or any subsequent historian blaming congress for passing that resolution. The President is the Commander and Chief and is responsible for being honest with Congress. If Congress cannot rely on the honesty of the President on matters of war and peace, then the remedy is impeachment.

I, also, believe that it is a disservice to all military veterans to have the President reduce a comemoration of their sacrifice to partisan politcal purpose. When can we get away from believing that more have to die in order to justify the loss of those already dead? That same attitude contributed to more than 58,000 dead in Viet Nam. Can anyone honestly say that we are not now in the early stages of another Viet Nam? The truth is what the truth is and George Bush is not a talented enough liar to change the truth!

Though I agree that blaming the Democrats is a sleazy way to avoid debate, the fact is that there WAS plenty of evidence, available before the war, to show that Bush was wrong and deliberately attempting to mislead the American public. Anyone willing to read beyond the mainstream press's accounts, and willing to believe that sometimes governments lie, could piece together a different story. Many in the anti-war movement did just that. If the anti-war members of the public could see this, surely Senate Democrats could have--they chose instead to march in step with the Bush administration. Now that the Bush admin seems to be imploding, more Democrats are jumping on the anti-war bandwagon. To them I say welcome, but let's not pretend that you were "mislead" in the same way as a member of the general public with 2 jobs and no time to read beyond the local newspaper.

Zmag online has a huge archive of articles about the war, divided by date of publication--the "early 2003" section proves this pretty clearly.