A Post and Courier columnist reports that Gov. Warner was a hit at a fundraiser last night in South Carolina. In fact, he was so good that he “appears to have wrapped up South Carolina’s 2008 Democratic presidential primary more than two years before voters will go to the polls and after only his second visit.” But shouldn’t a “Southern centrist” who aspires to be commander-in-chief tell us how he would have voted on the Iraq war authorization if he had been in Congress at the time? Would he regret that vote today if he had supported the authorization back then? Does Gov. Warner believe the president made the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power in March 2003 or does he believe the President should have given UN inspectors more time, and, if so, how much time? Sen. Clinton has had to take a position on all of the above questions without knowledge of how things will look in Iraq 6 or 18 months from now. It’s smart politically for Gov. Warner to kick the can down the road before taking a position so he can calibrate his answer with the facts on the ground, but why would Clinton strategists not try to get him on record today? And why are reporters giving the governor a free pass on the biggest issue a president faces — whether or not to go to war?
