Living History

Is it just me, or does this IHT article seem to be trying to create an alternate history? Writing about when Joe Biden and Barack Obama first crossed paths, it reads:

The two became colleagues upon Obama's entry to the Senate in 2005 and his appointment to the Foreign Relations Committee. Obama was perhaps best known at the time for opposing military action in Iraq.

Biden, who had opposed the Persian Gulf War in 1991, worked in 2002 with the committee's ranking Republican member, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, on a resolution that would authorize action to remove weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - but not to remove President Saddam Hussein. The White House opposed the idea, which floundered; Biden ultimately voted for the war resolution that Obama opposed.

But this is awfully muddy, isn't it, considering that Biden cast a vote as a Senator, while Obama opposed the resolution the same way your Aunt Minnie and the local junior college faculty association did? It really seems written so as to elevate to historical fact the supposition that, were he a senator like Kerry, Clinton, and Biden were at the time, Obama would have voted "Nay." Of course he might have--it's not that hard to imagine--but the point is he wasn't there when it counted.

If you've ever played a friendly game of quarter-ante poker that wanders into that bad part of town where hundreds start changing hands, you've seen how people's judgment changes as the stakes grow. Some grow calmer and more focused, others become irrational and panic, but everyone plays differently when it's for keeps. If the reporters don't see that, or don't think it applies here--then they're buffoons. Otherwise this is really quite a nefarious bit of ideation.