I subscribe to an RSS feed that notifies me of Smith's votes. To date his voting record has been strict Bush party line. Too little, too late in my opinion.

Smith is a self-serving head of hair.

My guess is he's not "opposed" to this war (a war that, up until this point, he has supported with no questions asked) as much as he is opposed to losing his next election.

Oregon's own "Senator Windsock" has innocent blood on his hands.

He gets no thanks from me.

Which way will the wind be blowing next week, Gordo?

to Tomcat I would like to look into Smith's entire voting record, % of Repub. party line votes, etc. Where can I get this info?
What is the RSS feed? Thanks

The Iraq Study Group Report says the Pentagon actively LIES about attacks... one day DOD said there were less than 100 attacks on our troops... the ISG says the actual number that day was 1,100.

So, the Pentagon is off by a multiple of 11. That's alot, Little Larsy!

When I worked on Capitol Hill, W was well-known up and down Connecticut Avenue as the drunken, cocaine-addicted ADHD freak of the family... now... he's the loser of the Free World.

Funny, huh? And it only took America three years and two failed wars and a couple of trillion dollars down the shithole to figure it out.

This is a positive development but too late to save his seat in my opinion. Senator Chisholm anyone?

Daily Kos (Oregon) tried to transcribe this, I caught what I could from OPB, the Medford story is weak. Ive been trying to get a transcript but can't find one up yet.

When I saw the placement and wording of this in today's Oregonian, I wanted to scream.

Never mind that many Dems were 2-3 years ahead of the curve in diagnosing what is wrong with our policy... if Republicans now speak out, then WHOA NELLY!, it MUST be time to change. The media, national and local, want to crown people like Chuck Hagel, Gordon Smith and John McCain as rebel independents who should be commended. Oh sure, they deserve praise for rubberstamping every Bush pet project until the past year, when his popularity ready took a dive. Courageous!

I want people to realize the 'GOP=strong foreign policy' canard has been exposed for the bullsh*t it always has been. As it turns out, made-for-TV rhetoric and 'cowboy diplomacy' doesn't last long in the real world. Gee wiz! Whoda thunk?

I've updated with the entire speech, so no filtering or agendizing

Looks as if Gordon Smith is doing his best flip-flopper immitation. Maybe he's getting a little antsy at all the talk of either Ben Westlund or Earl B. running against him soon.

Does anyone believe Gordon Smith just now figured out that things in Iraq aren't really going that swell?

It's been painfully obvious for a long time that the policy wasn't working -- even, I imagine, for Republican apologists like Smith.

Make no mistake, Smith just now came to this sudden "realization" about our failed policies in Iraq because the election and the Iraq Study Group give him the political cover he needs to say what he did not have the personal or political courgae to say before: George W. Bush's adventure in Iraq is a disaster.

Gordon Smith's current opinion about Iraq is irrelevent because the worm of public and political opinion has already turned in this country.

Democrats already control the Congress with or without Smith's vote. And W. is going to do what he wants regardless of what Gordo says.

Smith is not trying to LEAD our troops out of Iraq. He's trying to (finally) jump on the bandwagon that's already delivering that message loud and clear.

He's nothing but a cynical opportunist whose "enlightenment" about Iraq has come way too late to be taken for anything but the political maneuvering it truly is.

Don't fall for this guy's lame B.S.

And especially don't forget that hundreds of thousands of innocent people are dead or crippled because of policies Gordon Smith supported 110 percent without question.

Gordon Smith needs to take responsibility for his actions rather than simply worming his way out by distancing himself from policies he fully and enthusiastically supported.

I first read about Smith's comments in my morning's Oregonian. Of course the quote there ended with "That is absurd," leaving out the closer "It may even be criminal." Seeing the video I see Smith even stopped for dramatic pause before speaking that line. So, why did the O leave it out? Will it be too hard to paint Smith as a moderate if he suggests that the prosecution of the war has been criminal?

Pat summed up my sentiments exactly...

As quoted in The Oregonian, Earl Blumenauer is dead on: "Better late than never."

Shouldn't we be rejoicing that Gordon Smith broke party lines and spoke out against the war. Yes it's late, but would you rather he remain a coward and stick with the party line? We should support any politician brave enough to break ranks and actually speak out.

Shouldn't we be rejoicing that Gordon Smith broke party lines and spoke out against the war. Yes it's late, but would you rather he remain a coward and stick with the party line? We should support any politician brave enough to break ranks and actually speak out.

Don't know about you folks but I saw the TV clip of Gordon's speech, complete with "That is absurd. It may even be criminal. ". It was on local TV but also on the Friday PBS programs.

Forget just a moment that he's running for re-election or what you don't like about his voting record.

For those seeking Vietnam parallels, this may be as close as we get to "If we've lost Walter Cronkite, we've lost the war".

I think it was Rich Lowry saying most people he knows don't pay much attention to Gordon Smith, "but if more Republicans follow him...".

I saw the guy we once knew well as Sen. Pres. in 1995 when there were people who said you never knew when you'd see slippery Gordon or statesmanlike Gordon. I believe it was a genuinely serious speech, so maybe I'm not as cynical as some people.

More importantly than that, Gordon does the moral outrage about as well as anyone. My memory going back to Sen. Pres. is that when Gordon expresses moral outrage he is like a bulldozer and not much successfully stands up against that moral outrage.

If you believe that the situation in Iraq has to start being resolved now rather than waiting until 2008, relish the fact that Gordon Smith has joined so many other Republicans (Hagel, ISG members, etc.) in saying the Iraq status quo can't continue and change needs to come. Hard to call them "Defeatocrats who don't care about America".

For Paulina Kriebel: here's the link to the RSS feed:

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/rss/members/s001142/

OK, I read the entire speach. I believe it's about 98.8% phoney patriot pollyanna pap. I have about 0.00% faith that he will vote for anything that is good for Iraqis, Americans or the rest of the world. It looks to me like all he is doing is trying to adjust himself to the way the wind is blowing.

In today's Oregonian (Saturday) the Oregon Democratic Chairman, Jim Edmundson, is quoted as saying "[Smith] would not be taking this position if he were not very, very concerned about how the voters will view his record...We will hold him accountable for his history."

My concern is that we, Democrats, all with a variety of opinions about the war -- from TA Barnhart's red meat "too much blood on his hands" to LT's more nuanced stance -- will act like this is a vindication of the opposition to the war.

First I would like to point out that Smith as a Republican was not alone in voting war authorization, or the Patriot Act or (add your own sense of outrage here). That those measures passed with Democratic support. There is, if you will, a lot of "blood on the hands" of folks in Washington.

There is danger treating every word of opposition to the President's policies as righteous moral outrage and every word in support as venal political trash. And that a switch from one to the other is just mean-spirited move.

Could Mr. Smith have thought about the war as a necessary evil to honestly secure our national security and interest? Could he have thought that the Iraqi people would be better off under a more democratic regime? Is it possible that he would believe (or at least would wish to believe) that there is a basic human yearning for freedom of expression and self-destiny? Is it possible that he thought that changing the ruling pattern of dictatorship in the Middle East would improve the world?

I don't know...maybe. And maybe his speech was about changing his mind and making it public at the time that it would provide the maximum effect...as well as the maximum political effect for himself.

Yes, it is pretty obvious that Mr. Smith is making his tack back to the left after running under full canvas to the right for awhile. But at the same time, when you are in that position and know that your discussion of these issues actually matters, perhaps there is a bit of morality in what you say and when you say it, rather than JUST political gain. My sincere hope and belief is that when you are US Senator you do think about the country beyond politics and that leads to decisions which can be incredibly damaging for people, even if you think they made a difference. I am naive in this regard, but not so naive that I don't understand that saying something one day versus that other can bring great reward to you.

Let's take the speech on the face of it and now figure out how to make it better. One more vote for a viable strategy...OK, let's get started.

Folks, those of us who remember Vietnam know this is about turning public opinion. It was 1968 when the Tet Offensive happened proving the Vietcong were a lot stronger than we had been led to believe. Yet when Nixon was president he thought he could round up anti-war demonstrators with impunity (wasn't some of that part of the articles of impeachment?) and it was the early 1970s before public opinion turned around and 1975 before we left Vietnam. Lots of conversations among friends as well as overt political activity in those years.

I sent a link to a story about Gordon's speech to a friend who isn't a news junkie. He has always voted for Gordon and I know he was one of the 2004 Bush/ Hooley voters (incumbents deserving re-election--more of those voters than some people realize).

He wrote back thanking me for telling him about the speech.

"So that was an interesting article. I still am glad we took down Saddam, but I really align with what Gordon Smith said now."

This is what is going on with the national opinion polls. If people who voted for Bush and for Gordon Smith liked the Smith speech, that means Bush can no longer dismiss people who question his policy in Iraq as unpatriotic.

Getting out of Iraq after all these years (someone said we passed a lot of exit ramps along the way) will be tough--the ISG said there are no good options. But keep an open mind and look for opportunities to have conversations about this with people you know but whose politics you don't always agree with.

In fairness to Gordon Smith, many of my fellow Democrats supported this war and some, like Hillary, continue to support it. Senator Kerry said in 2004 that he would have done everything differently about Iraq that Bush, but never articulated just what he would have done.

Bobby Kennedy is cannonized in a new movie, but that movie doesn't mention that he didn't oppose Vietnam until 1967, long after Morse of Oregon, Greuning, Church, McGovern Fulbright and probably a dozen other D Seantors did. Many Democrats, like Walter Mondale, waited until 1969 or later to oppose Vietnam, and some continued to support Vietnam until the end. The fact is that only Morse and Gruening had the courage to oppose Gulf of Tonkin in 1964.

Unfortuantely, now as in Vietnam, many politicans are so afraid of being labled "weak on defense" (or communisms, terrorism, whatever..." that they hesitate to oppose a clearly flawed foriegn policy. I wish that Senator Smith would have made this speech much earlier, but it was a good speech and I'm glad he made it.

Like Gordo or hate him, the words "absurd" and "criminal" are echoing down Pennsylvania Avenue on this working Saturday as the Bushies all get ready to joust on the Sunday talk shows.

The thoughts may be phony and too late, but they were a cannon shot that had a direct hit on The White House that was busy trying to shred the Baker-Hamilton report.

Heck, Keith Olbermann led his news show with Gordo last night, a show that's killing Billbo, and it was headlned something like "Mr. Smith Gets a Conscience".

This line is interesting: "It may even be criminal." -G. Smith.

Can he really mean what that implies? That wasting lives through incompetent leadership, certainly something military officers are held accountable for, can also qualify to remove Bush from office?

If he doesn't mean it, he should quit wasting our time with free sound bites in the big O.

Rob Bole,

Your comment is crazy good. Excellent observation, my friend.

Thanks, Grant.

Bobby Kennedy is cannonized in a new movie, but that movie doesn't mention that he didn't oppose Vietnam until 1967, long after Morse of Oregon, Greuning, Church, McGovern Fulbright and probably a dozen other D Seantors did.

Those of us who were Eugene McCarthy supporters, supported Morse, Church and others recall thinking at the time that Bobby was a bit of an opportunist. The assasination turned him into a martyr, but the divisions in the last year of his life were very real.

In his half-baked mea culpa, Smith trotted out the old excuse about going along with the intelligence that was available at the time. That is complete hogwash. Let's go back to October 2002, when he voted to give Bush authority to go to war, and the preceding months. Anyone paying attention to the news, including the mainstream media, knew from what Hans Blix, Scott Ritter and the UNMOVIC team were saying that there was good reason to question White House claims about WMDs. Other authorities on the Middle East made cogent arguments against an alliance between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) was on the intelligence committee and he voted against going to war. A jury must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt before they can convict someone for a petty crime. Surely, similar or higher standards are required before deciding on war.

Prior to the vote in the Senate in October 2002, Sen. Robert Byrd lectured his fellow senators that they would be violating their oath to the Constitution if they transferred the power to declare war to the president. Smith and 76 other senators betrayed that oath to play politics, the consequences of which are that hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered and maimed and the United States is now trapped in a monstrous catastrophe.

Like Macbeth, Smith has blood on his hands and his speech will do nothing to wipe away that blood. The only honorable step left for him is to resign.

A "bold move"? Excuse me? KOBI? There is nothing bold about Smith's comments. In fact, I'd say that the timing of the comments makes them "scared" moves; he's "scared" that he won't be re-elected.
Smith's comments would have been bold if they were spoken five or three or even one year ago; they stopped being bold on November 8th. I look forward to ushering in Smith's retirement.

I suggest a look at this commentary by Alexander Cockburn before unloading any further on Senator Smith. An excerpt, which is sure to make the blood of many Democrats start to boil:

"Here's comes Rep Silvestre Reyes of Texas, handpicked by Nancy Pelosi to head the House Intelligence Committee and he's calling for 20,000 more U.S. troops to be sent to Iraq. Reyes says they're needed to crush the Shi'a and Sunni militias. Didn't I tell to you right here, after the Nov 7 'peace moment' the polls, that the Democrats would fall into line behind Senator John McCain? The minute Jack Murtha made his run for House Majority leader the liberal establishment began to take a stand against all seditious talk of 'immediate redeployment'....

"Contrast this with the angry floor speech Republican Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, the potato kind of Pendleton, who said straighforwardly on Thursday night that he'd had it with the president that the US should 'cut and run, cut and walk or whatever ...'

So Smith wasn't playing politics with that speech? BS! Just because "the liberal establishment began to take a stand against all seditious talk of 'immediate redeployment'" doesn't mean that Smith's flip flop on the Iraq war wasn't politically motivated...Did he just wake up one day and realize that the war is criminal? Or, if he's been feeling this way about the war strategy for some time, why didn't he voice his opinion earlier? Sounds like convenience to me.

My spouse and I joke than voting Republican would be grounds for divorce. The chance that I will vote for Gordon Smith in 2008 is somewhere between zero and zero, but I truly do not understand the business of skewering him for his speech about Iraq the other night.

I'm always amazed how the idea that a politician might change his mind is regarded with such distaste and distrust. If you made a decision that affected your family, say, and later realized you had screwed up, would you apologize and try to make a change, or say screw it, just carry on?

Of course Smith's speech was politically motivated. He's an elected politician. He was speaking on the floor of the Senate, I believe. If he had said instead, carry on, I support Bush 100%, would that not also have been politically motivated?

Anyone remember when GOP George Romney (govenor of Michigan at the time, if I recall) said he had been "brainwashed" about the Vietnam war? Happened in 1967 or 1968, I believe, and ended his hopes of winning the GOP presidential nomination, but arguably it was one more politician saying, whoa, do NOT stay the course.

Gordon Smith can be someone I'll never vote for and still occasionally be right.