Democrats are coming out of the woodwork to claim their pro-war, pre-war statements are really not their faults because the president had different intelligence reports than they did.   They claim "the president" embraced the reports which favored his position while stifling those that didn't.   That sounds good, and Democrats have increasingly embraced whatever sounds good, but it only tells a very small part of the story.

I won't go through the litany of Democrats who are claiming their comments were not their own faults but let's just say anyone who said anything about WMD et al in the 4 years before we invaded Iraq, has something to say which blames "the president."   That would be true if Senators and others were mere consumers of intelligence reports which were vetted by the White House but that's not the way the game works.   Intelligence services don't work like, say, HUD.   Senators on committees with intelligence oversight have far more interaction with career intelligence operatives and officers than they do with HUD appointees.   They receive intelligence information first hand.   In some cases, congressmen and women have better relations with intelligence people.   But brush that aside because there's more here than simply one administration bent on war.   The majority of war words spoken by lead Democratic Senators were spoken when Bill Clinton was in office.   Many were spoken during the presidential campaign before Bush took over the office.   So who is to blame for those?