[This is a repost. Original article lost after the recent server move.]

From last night's Meet the Press:

(Videotape, March 19, 2004)

PRES. BUSH: Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chamber still be open? Who would wish that more mass graves were still being filled? Who would begrudge the Iraqi people their long-awaited liberation?

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: What the president's saying, Senator, if you had your way the torture chambers, the mass graves, and the hostile holding of the Iraqi people by Saddam Hussein would still be in place.

SEN. KENNEDY: Look, this nation, this president, brought us unilaterally to war. They have had a unilateral foreign policy where they rejected the Kyoto treaty, they got out of the ABM treaty, they have basically taken us to war alone, and that has fracture the whole alliance, the whole world community, from having the kind of cooperation that is absolutely essential if we're going to deal with the problems of terror and al-Qaeda in the world.

Sure, there are dictators that we want to free ourselves from. But, you know, we have sacrificed in terms of lives, American lives, we have sacrificed in terms of treasure and we have most of all sacrificed in terms of the credibility of the United States around the world.

Lives. Treasure. Important things, yes. But Gawd forbid we squander international credibility!