Sen. Durbin should have risked more

Sen. Richard Durbin, (D-Ill.) said on the floor of the House Wednesday that he knew the information the White House was presenting to the public leading up to the Iraq War was different from what he was hearing in classified briefings on the intelligence committee, but that the law prevented him from saying this in public.

I'm not sure why he would bring this up now, except perhaps as a way of acknowledging that he shares in the responsibility for misleading the American public.

Revealing what he heard in the classified briefings would have brought criminal charges against him. He says he spoke out against the war in general terms and voted against the resolution authorizing President Bush to go to war.

But cannot say he did everything he could to save the country from the tragedy we face today. Other Democrats on the committee voted in favor of the resolution. How hard did he try to convince them to vote against the war? Half the Democrats on the intelligence committee voted with the Republicans in favor of going to war. If Durbin knew that something wasn't right, he needed at least to persuade other Democrats on the committee to stand with him in opposing the war.

Simply to say now, "I voted the right way back then," does not absolve a person of all responsibility. There was a wide spectrum of actions he could have taken short of breaking the laws that protect classified information. From what we know so far, Sen. Durbin does not seem to have walked that line very far at all.

Young Americans are putting their lives at risk in Iraq today. If Sen. Durbin had risked a little more in 2003 than he did, they might not be there.