The candidates for the U.S. House in the Third District held their second face-to-face debate on Kentucky Educational Television Monday night.Among the issues discussed by Republican challenger Anne Northup and Democratic incumbent John Yarmuth was the war in Iraq.Yarmuth said the war was a "folly" from the beginning."And it remains a folly," Yarmuth said. "Not only a folly, it has cost us what will eventually be somewhere in the neighborhood of two to three trillion dollars, it's cost us thousands of American lives and thousands of lives ruined with serious injuries. And all it has done is drive terrorists elsewhere, it has empowered Iran to the point where they have never been empowered."Northup, who held the congressional seat for ten years before losing to Yarmuth in 2006, said she would not have voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq had she known there were no weapons of mass destruction in the country."Everybody thought that they had weapons of mass destruction," Northup said. "The previous president, the current president, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. So it was with that chance that weapons of mass destruction could get in the hands of terrorists, whether it was Al Quaida or other terrorists, they certainly were funding terrorists." The two candidates also discussed their differences over the government rescue of the financial sector, which Yarmuth reluctantly supported. Northup said she would have voted against the measure.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.