“Welcome!” cooed a woman with big white teeth and shiny red lips. “Would you like a sticker?” She peeled a stylized American flag in a blue circle off a roll and handed it to me. “Coat check is on your left,” she chirped.
These people–including members of Chicago ANSWER, the International Solidarity Movement, and Peace Pledge Chicago–have a problem with Senator Clinton’s track record since the 2002 “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq,” which about half of the Senate’s Democrats voted for, including Clinton. Since then she’s continually spoken in favor of a war that has so far cost the country over $357 billion, according to last Sunday’s Boston Globe, as well as 2,124 American lives and, according to a study in the British medical journal the Lancet, 50 times as many Iraqi lives.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“Democrats are making noises that they’re the kinder, gentler party,” Thayer told me, “but they’re spending tons of money on the war. We’re going to loudly call them out and let them know that they’re not going to have our voting support in their back pockets this time.”
At 9:30 the other journalists clomped in through a side door, red-cheeked and wet, their gloves and beards crusted with snow. The volunteers ushered us all to a balcony. Across the dance floor was another balcony, where Clinton was waiting with the Secret Service.
But Clinton did write a letter to constituents last week saying that false information–those WMD in Iraq, for example–misled her into voting for the 2002 resolution. “Based on the information that we have today, Congress never would have been asked to give the President authority to use force against Iraq,” she wrote. “And if Congress had been asked, based on what we know now, we never would have agreed.”
“But I just got a drink–” I tried to explain.
“I’m not kicking you out,” he said. “Your government is.”
