I think that the question of judgment is a credible one for Obama to raise. Of course, past performance is not a perfect indicator of future success, but clear thinking about Iraq in the runup to the war seems like a good test.

My ears pricked up at a new wrinkle in Clinton’s explanation as to why she voted for the authorization of force:

Knowing that he was a megalomaniac, knowing he would not want to compete for attention with Osama bin Laden, there were legitimate concerns about what he might do.

So I think I made a reasoned judgment.

I’ve always been bothered by Clinton’s assertion that the intentions of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were concealed and unknowable. But okay, screw me once….

And I’ll concede that nearly everybody in government seemed to believe that Saddam probably–if not certainly–had a stockpile of some weapons of mass destruction.

But having WMD is different from using WMD. Hussein had control over the Iraqi state. Using WMD outside of his borders would cause an immediate and swift, unified response from the world to strip him of his power. Clinton justifies her vote by saying that she thought that Hussein would be jealous of all the attention that Osama bin Laden was getting? A ridiculous bit of amateur psychological profiling is a centerpiece of your “reasoned judgment” to authorize the war?

In my book, that’s either being governed by unreasonable fear, or being tragically overconfident in your ability to personally read the intentions of faraway dictators.