Yesterday, I posted a diary here on Rick MacArthur's false attacks against Barack Obama. I didn't have time to focus on another one of MacArthur's lies: "if you believe that Obama is going to get us out of Iraq, think again. The people I talk to, the people who know the foreign policy entourage around Obama, particularly Anthony Lake, Samantha Power, these are the conventional Wilsonian liberal interventionists who more or less favored invading Iraq to begin with, or at least they kept their mouths shut, or they might have preferred to do it with more UN cooperation, more European help, and so on and so forth."
Here is the response I got from Samantha Power: "the charge is ridiculous. i opposed the war in iraq and spoke out in radio and television. i consistently and loudly favored withdrawal. i have spoken out about the need to incorporate the welfare of iraqis into withdrawl plans. since rick is a person who has spoken out forcefully against the falsehoods of the bush administration, it is disappointing that he himself proves so indifferent to facts." This 2004 Time article confirms that Power opposed the war in Iraq.
I didn't contact Anthony Lake, but at least one report indicates that he opposed the war in Iraq.
It's true that Power and Lake (and Obama) are not isolationists. And that's a good thing. One of the dangers of any president is to fight the previous war and blunder because of it (that's McCain's problem with the Vietnam War he wants to win in Iraq). The selection of Joe Biden, who supported the war in Iraq, raised questions in the minds of some progressives about Obama's commitment to end the war in Iraq. It's all nonsense. Obama is willing to listen to people who, like Biden, have interesting ideas but are sometimes wrong. However, it's ultimately Obama's judgment that matters, and his judgment has been sound.
Crossposted at DailyKos.
