vince wrote" On the Letterman show, Clinton firmly, I thought, took a stand against a war with Iraq."
Kate replied: "from my recollections his position was not firmly or obviously (to me anyway) antiwar" And seeing the tape again will help. I should add that my conclusion as stated above was grounded in all of the caveats that Clinton enunciated, which allowed him to speak no ill but graciously of the current president while giving forth a whole host of things to consider - which to my mind, Clinton was listing those caveats as to indicate that war would be a policy that he would not pursue. But that was my interpretation of it, which is why I added the caveat of what "I thought" Clinton said, rather that state affirmatively, "Clinton said..." One of his caveats was that if Saddam feels that he has nothing to lose, will use what weapons he does have stockpiled, giving a far better explanation than G HW Bush did when he was president about why the first Bush did not go to Baghdad - because then Saddam would have unleashed those weapons in 1991. That Clinton would articulate the elder Bush's strategy, and identify with it, so clearly, left me impressed and for the first time I understood why we stopped without "getting" Saddam in 1991. And someone noted but oit bears repeated that Clinton was gracious to Bush throughout, expressing thanks for the presidential jet that got Bill back to the US from Australia to be with his family on September 11th. And it was in listening closely to see where Clinton disagreed with Bush because Clinton was very gracious to Bush. The disagreements were there, but said so skillfully that Clinton was in no way saying anything the slightest bit negative about Bush. That bit of graciousness was very good coming from a former presient speaking about a current president.
