Quotes du Jour on the War

It’s rare, in the Bush era, for Republicans to be splintered in this fashion (and there’s also a faction that is unhappy with the war, unhappy with the troop hike, yet skittish about voting for any resolution). The key remark was uttered yesterday by Trent Lott, the Mississippi senator whose job, as minority whip, is to count heads. Thinking ahead to the Senate debate on Iraq slated for next week, Lott said that he would not try to rally his colleagues to support one single approach; rather, he’ll tell them to “vote their conscience.”

That’s a stunning comment. For six years, the congressional GOP leaders had typically decreed that senators (and House members) should vote as the Bush White House wanted them to vote. But now Lott is essentially saying, “You’re under no obligation to follow Bush over a cliff, if that is your concern. Go do whatever you have to do, in order to save your own political skin back home.”

-- DICK POLMAN

No one is under any obligation to run as a candidate for the Presidency; but those who elect to do so are under a high and serious obligation to understand the nature of the office to which they are aspiring. If, like Lincoln, a future President Clinton finds herself confronted with a mess made by her predecessor in office, it will not be enough for her to blame Mr. Bush for his incompetence and mismanagement. It will avail her naught to continue to declare that Iraq is Bush's responsibility. By then, whether she likes it or not, Iraq will be her responsibility, and no one else's. If she refuses to recognize this unpleasant truth now, while still a candidate, how prepared will she be to recognize it when she is President and it is too late to throw the responsibility on someone else?

-- LEE HARRIS

ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPH:
Sue Ellen McNerney watches the funeral procession for Army Private First Class
Shawn Falter in Homer, New York. Falter and three other soldiers were abducted
and executed in an ambush attack in Iraq. (The Associated Press)