The Biggest Lie [VDH]

National Review ^ | 10/21/2014 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Servant of the Cross]

The Left would rather forget its old slogan, “Bush lied, thousands died.”

The very mention of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and Iraq was toxic for Republicans by 2005. They wanted to forget about the supposed absence of recently manufactured WMD in great quantities in Iraq; Democrats saw Republican defensiveness as key to their recovery in 2006. By the time Obama was elected, the issue had been demagogued to death, was no longer of any political utility, and so vanished.

So why all of a sudden is the New York Times strangely focused on old WMD stockpiles showing up in Iraq? Is the subtext perhaps that the rise of ISIS poses an existential threat in such a dangerous landscape (and by extension offers an explanation for the current bombing)? Or are we to be reminded that Bush stirred up a WMD hornets’ nest that Obama was forced to deal with? Or is the sudden interest intended to preempt the story now before we learn that ISIS routinely employs WMD against the Kurds? How strange that Iraq, WMD, bombing, and preemption reappear in the news, but now without the hysteria of the Bush era.

Indeed, for the last two years, reports of WMD of some sort have popped up weekly in Syria and Iraq. Bashar Assad has used them

[Servant of the Cross]

I yield to this point. Using the word “fight” as a verb to describe our current gop leadership is completely incorrect.

[what's up]

GREAT article!

[Billthedrill]

The real key to the constantly changing narrative is that the media do it because they can get away with it, because they have committed to an ideological stance and will post anything from its sources uncritically and absolutely everything from its opponents with a dismissive disdain. That latter is probably why Bush declined to engage in this particular arena or perhaps why Rove told him not to if that is indeed the case.

There is an infuriatingly smug "we knew it all along" subtext to the current revelations that indicate to me that they really did, a truly damning proposition and an open admission of manipulation and betrayal of the public.

There is good and bad in the increasing influence of the Internet on global reporting. It is, to be sure, a conduit for misinformation from time to time, but it is also a permanent record of that misinformation that cannot be remedied by such activities as a newspaper closing its archives to the public. And so this "we knew it all along" trope should be, and is being, countered by "then why did you state otherwise?" and proof that the media did. The reaction so far is