A reader points out an interesting moment from yesterday's Dem debate. Commenting on his vote to authorize the Iraq War, Edwards said this:

"I was wrong to vote for this war. Unfortunately, I will have to live with that forever. The lesson that I learned from it is that to put more faith in my own judgment."

This passed unnoticed, but it's pretty interesting. Edwards' suggestion here is that his own judgment led him to the conclusion that voting against the war was the right thing to do. So who was he listening to?

This gets even more interesting when you recall that last month Kerry-Edwards adviser Bob Shrum released a book alleging that Edwards voted for the war only because his advisers said he should and that he was skeptical of the vote. At the time, Edwards' spokesperson adamantly denied this, saying that Edwards had "cast his vote based on the advice of national security advisers and the intelligence he was given, not political advisers." In other words, his vote was at least partly based on his reading of the intel.

But yesterday Edwards seemed to reinforce the idea that he had voted for the war on the strength of what he heard from advisers and against his own judgment. So whose judgment was he listening to? Is it possible Shrum's account is true? Or did Edwards base his vote on the judgment of his national security advisers alone and disregard his own judgments made based on the intelligence?

This needn't necessarily reflect badly on Edwards; it remains murky. The point is, given Edwards' willingness to acknowledge that he was wrong -- and given the centrality of the vote to the current campaign -- I'd genuinely like to know more about what went into Edwards' decision-making at the time.

Update: And don't miss this catch by Ben Smith on another intriguing aspect of Edwards' performance.