In the Telegraph (UK), Mark provides a useful categorization:
As I understand it, the British Labour Party is divided between those in favour of war with Iraq and those opposed to it. In the US Democratic Party, it's more complicated:.More goodness by following the link.
Faction A is anti-war but trying hard not to have to say so between now and election day in November.
Faction B was pro-war when it was Bill Clinton in charge but anti-war now there's a Republican rallying the troops.
Faction C can go either way but huffily insists that to ask them to express an opinion would be to "politicise" the war.
Faction D can't quite figure which position alienates least of their supporters and so articulates a whole all-you-can-eat salad bar of conflicting positions and then, in a weird postmodern touch, ostentatiously agonises over the "inherent risks" in each of them.
Faction E thinks the priority right now should be to sit around holding inquiries into why the administration failed to act on what it knew about al-Qa'eda before they killed thousands of Americans. To act on what we know about Saddam before he kills thousands of Americans would be an unnecessary distraction from the important work of investigating why we didn't act last time round.
Taken as a whole, the 50 Democratic senators' current positions on Iraq forms the all-time record multiple-contortionist pretzel display. But a week ago they showed signs of finally remembering the First Rule of Holes: when you're in one, stop digging. Instead of talking about why they don't want to talk about Iraq, they correctly figured that the easiest thing would be to give Bush some qualified, perfunctory support and hastily change the subject to something more favourable, such as the allegedly collapsing economy.
But then Al Gore rose from the dead to demonstrate that his political antennae are still as reliable as a 1948 TV with busted rabbit ears.
