Kanjorski says Dems were insincere about ending war

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) is seen in a video that has surfaced on the Web saying that Democrats “sort of stretched the facts” in the 2006 elections about their ability to end the Iraq war.

In a video , posted to YouTube on Thursday, Kanjorski reflects on the Democrats’ approach to the war in 2006 and said they pushed the rhetoric “as far as we can to the end of the fleet — didn’t say it, but we implied it — that if we won the congressional elections, we could stop the war.

{mosads}“Now, anybody who’s a good student of government would know it wasn't true,” he said. “But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress — we sort of stretched the facts.”

The video was dated Aug. 28, 2007, by the person who posted it. The remarks are not placed in a larger context.

Republicans reacted Friday by calling for Kanjorski to apologize.

“For Paul Kanjorski to admit that Democrats campaigned in ’06 on a fraudulent agenda to end the war not only exposes his own calculated efforts to fool the voters of his district, but it also raises the question of whether this was a coordinated effort by the Democratic Party as a whole,” said a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, Ken Spain. “Paul Kanjorski should be ashamed of himself for using our troops in harm’s way as political pawns for his own partisan agenda.”

In a statement, Kanjorski attributed the remarks to frustration and suggested that his Democratic colleagues weren't deliberately over-selling their plan for Iraq.

“In an August 2007 town meeting, I shared the frustration of my constituents that the war in Iraq continued," he said. "I expressed my belief that some Democrats in 2006 overestimated the ability of a single house of Congress to end the war, particularly in the face of an intransigent President and Senate Republicans who are committed to continuing the war." 

The 71-year-old 12th-term congressman is currently locked in what could be his first competitive congressional race since 2002, and Republicans have recruited Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta.