As I type, moveon.org and Air America are hosting an online forum on the topic of the war in Iraq with 7 of the Democratic candidates for president: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden.

Edwards stressed congressional power to stop the war, and the importance of grassroots efforts. He quoted Martin Luther King, when King called for the end of the Vietnam war 40 years ago.

I missed most of Biden's time due to technical difficulties, but what I did hear him stress was a U.S. plan for keeping Iraq stable after our withdrawal.

Kucinich talked extensively about his plan for withdrawal from Iraq H.R. 1234. Going along with his other radical unrealistic stances, Kucinich said he would support a nuclear proliferation treaty which would eliminate all nuclear weapons worldwide. I was glad that he mentioned joining the International Criminal Court.

Gov. Richardson called for engaging Syria and other countries in the region in diplomacy on Iraq. Then he went on to tout his own plan for withdrawal, which he argued could be effectively achieved in just 8 months. When asked whether or not he supports congress cutting the funding for the war, Richardson said that he favors repealing authorization for the war under the War Powers Act, in order to avoid endless vetos.

Next up was Sen. Clinton, who spoke about her plan to begin troop deployment within 90 days and moving responsibility to the Iraqi government. Although I have to admit I'm not too hot for Hillary, she did answer the questions with a sharp clear speaking style that was better than I've heard from her in the past. I especially liked when she underlined the fact that Democrats were the ones who passed funding for the troops, while Bush is the one who is treatening to veto that funding. I couldn't help but notice that while Sen. Clinton was speaking, Moveon displayed some pretty unflattering photos of her on the online conference.

When Chris Dodd took his turn of questioning, he sounded much more genuine than some of the other other candidates whose responses had sounded very scripted. When asked about Iraq's oil being exploited by large corporations, Dodd wandered off topic a bit and spoke about the critical importance of American energy independence. He finished by speaking about improving America's image abroad by ending our human rights abuses.

The final candidate was Barack Obama, who began by reminding everyone of his initial opposition to the war. He went on to support engaging Syria and Iran in dialog. The critical question for Obama was when he was asked whether or not he would threaten to withhold funding for the war even if Bush vetoes the current bill. Obama's response was definitely a step back from his infamous "can't play chicken with the troops" line, as he called for a strong attempt to override an inevitable Bush veto.