Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Did Michael Arcuri Support the Iraq War or Not?

An entire election season has come and gone, and throughout it all, Michael Arcuri has refused to answer this basic question:

Did you support the Iraq War when it began in 2003?

There is no absolute evidence either way, but the clues are all there to suggest that, in fact, Michael Arcuri did support the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

There is, for one thing, no proof that Michael Arcuri did anything to try to convince Sherwood Boehlert to vote against the legislation authorizing the start of the Iraq War.

There is also the curiously consistent argument used by Mike Arcuri's defenders that, as a District Attorney, Arcuri could not have done anything in public to oppose the war. That's an absurd argument, given that as Attorney General of all of New York State, Eliot Spitzer took a public stand on the war.

Then there's the fact that Michael Arcuri calls himself "a Boehlert Democrat". Sherwood Boehlert voted for the war. So, when Arcuri embraces Boehlert's positions, he's embracing support for the Iraq War too. What is a Boehlert Democrat, if not a Democrat who thought that going to war in Iraq would be a great idea?

It seems that Michael Arcuri only started to criticize the Iraq War recently, when it became the popular thing to do.

This isn't just Monday morning quarterbacking, dwelling on the past. The positions that politicians took on starting the Iraq War are a good indication of what they would do in similar situations in the future. Given another reckless rush to war, we have every reason to believe that Mike Arcuri would jump on the pro-war bandwagon.

Michael Arcuri is a moral jellyfish, drifting to whatever positions the prevailing political currents take him. Instead of moving for himself, Arcuri takes the easy way out, and just hangs out with all the other flotsam. He doesn't even hope to be a leader. Arcuri's greatest policy ambition is to blend in with the water all around him, so that no one can see how little substance he actually has.

We Democrats deserved to have a candidate with a spine, not a moral invertebrate like Michael Arcuri. We got no primary, of course, because local party bosses didn't want to give Democratic voters a say. The result? We're left with the quivering mass of slipperiness that is Michael Arcuri.

In 2008, let's support the candidate that we don't feel that we have to apologize for.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Better question - does Ray Meier support Dennis Hastert or will he call for his resignation now?

Get rid of the Republican leadership and you start the wind down process in Iraq.

Anonymous said...

Jon said "Michael Arcuri is a moral jellyfish, drifting to whatever positions the prevailing political currents take him."

Gotcha! If you are correct, and you are, then lets vote for him, and he will drift with the new political current in the DEMOCRATICALLY controlled congress!

Anonymous said...

Actually, to be fair, there are no clues either way. What are you looking for--a letter to the editor from a sitting DA? Unlikely. A speech about law enforcement that mentioned impending war? Kinda doubt it. A conversation with friends that someone thought to post on the Internet? How many of us have our pre-war opinions publicly displayed? It's just not a reasonable expectation. And what makes you think Arcuri even THOUGHT about Iraq before he was chosen to run?

Anonymous said...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15116302/

It's now or never Jon. We either send Mike Arcuri to Washington, with a boot up his ass to stiffen his spine if necessary, or we go the way of the Whigs.

Anonymous said...

It is evident that this site does not support Arcuri.The 24th and the country despeately need a congressman who will fulfill his constitutional role as a check on an out-of control executive. The conservative ndorsed Meier is certainly not that person!Many excellent people were misled by Cheney/Bush at the time.