Conservative Political Action Conference

In a speech to a conservative audience that spanned several decades of U.S. foreign policy, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert spoke passionately about the wars of yesteryear, tying together Vietnam, the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – while mostly blaming them on former President Jimmy Carter."If you go to war, you'd better mean it," Gohmert said a few times during a speech and panel discussion Thursday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference – CPAC for short – just outside Washington, D.C.Yet Gohmer's hawkish comments -- the kind of red meat that usually goes over well at these gatherings -- got a tepid response from the crowd, which clapped politely when he finished but seemed almost disconnected with his walk down memory lane."I'm sure we could hear all about this on the History Channel," one person was overheard saying. The chatter on the opening day of CPAC was just the latest evidence that -- on matters of military power, anyway -- the co...

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