The New Year Quote by Ed Pastor

The line is built to do two political jobs at once: keep the moral distance of an Iraq War skeptic while claiming the patriotic credibility of a war supporter. Pastor’s syntax is the tell. “Although” signals a concession, a preemptive defense against the most predictable attack line in post-9/11 American politics: you’re either “with us” or you’re against the troops. By pairing “voted against the initial resolution” with “consistently voted to support our troops,” he tries to break that binary and replace it with a more nuanced (and safer) identity: anti-war, not anti-soldier.

The subtext is aimed less at policy wonks than at campaign mailers. “Initial resolution” sounds procedural, almost technocratic, shrinking a world-historical decision into a parliamentary moment. It lets him argue he showed judgment at the outset without dwelling on the messy aftermath. Then comes the emotional pivot: “our troops,” “much-needed,” “armor and supplies.” That language is deliberately tactile and non-ideological. You can argue about intelligence failures and nation-building; it’s harder to argue against body armor.

Context matters: by the mid-2000s, Iraq had curdled politically, but the “support the troops” frame remained potent. Democrats in particular needed a way to oppose the war’s architecture while insulating themselves from accusations of weakness. Pastor’s sentence is a bridge between those pressures: a record explained as character. It’s not just justification; it’s inoculation.