In October 2002, the senior Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, voted for the Iraq War Resolution for Use of Military Force against Iraq. So, did the junior Senator from New York, Hillary Clinton.

There hasn’t been much fallout for Senator Schumer’s vote, but, of course, Senator Schumer isn’t running to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. Senator Clinton, of course, is, and her vote for the Iraq War Resolution is the single most important weapon being used against her by her opponent, the junior Senator from the State of Illinois, Barack Obama.

Senator Clinton has since regretted that vote, but she has adamantly refused to apologize for it. She has said things like: If I knew then what I know now I might have voted differently. She has indicated that she, like the other senators who voted for the war resolution, trusted President Bush’s promise that he would do everything to bring Saddam Hussein under control before he’d take military action.

Interview after interview, debate after debate, no matter how much she is cornered, Senator Clinton stands firm on her vote, as she did in the last debate with her opponent Senator Obama. Watching her parse her words was painful for the viewers. No one, even those who support her candidacy, believed her explanations for her vote.

Everyone wishes she would do, as former Senator John Edwards did, just admit that her vote was wrong. Everyone is tired of her excruciating explanations.

Obama,  at the time of the Senate vote, was a member of the Illinois State Legislature. On October 26, 2002, at an anti-war rally on the streets of Chicago,  Obama delivered an impassioned speech against the potential invasion of Iraq. The speech was filled with all the poetic eloquence of an Obama oration, a speech, some identify as the opening salvo of his bid for the presidency.

“I am not opposed to all wars, just dumb wars. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics,” the Illinois state senator said.

There has been much discussion as to the reason that Senator Clinton refuses to apologize for her vote. Chief among them is the gender argument - she doesn’t want to look weak by issuing a mea culpa because she is the first woman running to become Commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. Maybe that’s true.

But there has been one argument I haven’t heard and I think it’s the more plausible. In fact, I believe it is the most understandable reason why both Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton were compelled to vote for the resolution and today stand committed to their votes and refuse to apologize for them.

They both represent The State of New York.

New York, where on September 11, 2001, on that late summer morning, nineteen terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda crashed two airliners into New York City’s Twin Towers at the World Trade Center and burned alive nearly 3000 Americans.

The Iraq War vote, a year later, was more than a vote to takeout Saddam Hussein. It represented for some Americans, many of them New Yorkers, a chance to retake control of their lives and feelings so cruelly wrenched by the terrorists. The war would be their psychological retribution against the innocent murders of so many Americans, mostly New Yorkers.

Barack Obama’s speech, that day in Chicago, far from the blood-stained streets of New York, spoke against wars based on passion rather than reason. But I submit most wars are a result of our passions and have little to do with reason.

A year following 9/11 it was passion and emotion that was driving every New Yorker, something an Illinois legislator could know nothing about.

It was because of the compassion for the people they represent and a moral obligation to their constituency that both Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton had to vote for the war as they did. Had they voted differently one can only wonder what many of their constituents might have said, and more importantly, considering the time of the vote, might have felt.

Mrs. Clinton can never admit to the emotions that were guiding her vote in October 2002. To do so would be the equivalent of political suicide. What man would forgive a woman her most human instinct – after 9/11 weighing emotion into the equation of a vote for war.

I can think of hardly any, certainly not Barack Obama, and that makes me want to cry.

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