funny thing about Biden and the Iraq War is he thought he could be a moderate and prevent it, he openly said he didn't think that any WMD program that might exist in Iraq was an imminent threat to the US and worked to get bipartisan support for an alternative to Bush's resolution

And Biden had bipartisan support in congress and Powell's ear at state but then Dick Gephardt killed the Biden-Luger measure unceremoniously by throwing his support behind Bush's resolution on Iraq in an apparent bid to boost his own potential presidential campaign in the future

So Biden instead but his faith in Colin Powell thinking that Powell would stop war in Iraq from happening. We all know how that turned out.

None of this absolves Biden of his vote for war in Iraq, mind you. It's still infuriating the number of people, particularly within in the democratic party, who were skeptical of the claims the Bush administration was making but who still voted to authorize military force.

Biden put too much faith in the system itself, thinking there were ways the power of the administration to simply start a war like this could and would be checked, and when rational alternatives to what Bush had cooked up were defeated Biden acquiesced to the irrational.

Still, it's a shame that Biden had crafted a potential off ramp on Iraq, something a number of democrats and republicans were looking for, only for it to be torpedoed by his own party's leadership and for no good reason.

Apparently Gephardt explained his preference for Bush's plans for Iraq by telling the rest of his party that he didn't vote for Bush but Bush is the president so we have to go along with what he says

I don't know what's worse: being a wild eyed lunatic and believing your own propaganda in order to wage war or knowing a march toward war is built on lies but going along with it anyway.