They Made Their Choices, And They'll Never Know ...

In case it's not evident from the posts and the reading list, let me make it clear that I am a native-born resident of the Great State of New Jersey.

We have a primary coming up in June (we had the Presidential primary on "Super Tuesday", due to a [now clearly] ill-conceived attempt to be "relevant" in the Presidential selection process). Anyway, this primary includes a nomination contest between Senator Frank Lautenberg, and challenger Congressman Rob Andrews.

Would it have been better if Senator Lautenberg retired this year, and gave a chance to one of the very worthy Democratic office-holders to replace him? Yes, it would have. Was Congressman Andrews one of those "very worthy office-holders"? No, certainly not at the top of the list, imho.

Nevertheless, when Senator Lautenberg decided to run again, Congressman Andrews decided that this was his chance to jump over the rest of the pack, and claim the Senate nomination for himself. Here's one problem with that -

Rob Andrews defends his Iraq war vote as the right decision:
As a co-sponsor of the resolution, Andrews concedes he did talk to other Democrats to vote in favor of the resolution and defends the vote, saying the intelligence presented at the time made it a "responsible vote."

"I think I made the right decision" at the time, said Andrews ...

This is the problem with that reasoning. To be blunt about it -

NO, IT WAS NOT THE RIGHT DECISION AT THE TIME, OR AT ANY OTHER TIME.

It would not be inappropriate to add the word "doofus" to the end of that sentence.

We can't select candidates who fail to understand that the Iraq invasion decision, and even the vote that enabled that decision, was the wrong choice. Trying to pretend otherwise is the wrong road. So, we don't need to give Congressman Andrews the keys to the Senate from our state.