Was the Iraq war the Democrats Fault?

Some conservative commentators would like to change the narrative of the Iraq War. The current story is that President Bush and his allies lead us into an unnecessary war, misled us about how difficult it would be, and mismanaged the war leading to disasters like Abu Ghraib and Haditha.

This version of history, however, doesn't look very good for Republicans or Conservatives. So they need to change the story. One way is to suggest that Democrats wanted to invade Iraq just as much as Republicans did, and have since, hypocritically, changed their minds.

It was not so long ago -- only four years -- that a significant number of Democrats in the U.S. Congress evaluated the available evidence and voted to authorize war with Iraq. Eighty-one Democrats in the House, including a fair number of liberals like Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., endorsed a "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq."

- Mona Charen, "The Spamalot party"

To put it simply, they initially supported the war in Iraq by voting for the use of force there. And then, when the going got tough and the reports of bloodthirsty animals who enjoy torturing, detonating and beheading their way to Allah became more pronounced, they decided that it was time to change their minds. They began declaring the war to be "a serious mistake", and "un-winnable."

Mike Gallagher, "Embracing the loser within"

No. Not exactly. It is clear that what Democrats thought they were voting for and what Bush and his buddies thought they got were two different things. You see it is 100% clear that President Bush and his Neo-Conservatives Chuckleheads were determined to invade Iraq. There is nothing Saddam could have done to prevent this (from their perspective). They were not interested in a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.

Many Democrats at the time, including myself, did not realize this. I believed the President when he talked of his hopes for a peaceful resolution to the Iraq situation. I was wrong, and I realize that now. Democrats voted for the Iraqi War Resolution, in part, because they hoped that by so doing they could avoid war. They failed to realize that war was exactly what President Bush wanted. It's embarrassing.

But to argue that Democrats wanted war in the same way that the President did is dishonest. And I'd rather be embarrassed than a filthy liar.