Not to mention perjury before a grand jury by the Chief US Law Enforcement Officer, subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, and the use of thugs like Lenzner or Palladino for enforcement. In my mind, these actions that led to impeachment, possible removal from office, and a promised (but not consummated) congressional censure does not equate to inserting 16 words into a State of the Union speech that suggested Saddam had sought to buy yellowcake uranium on a particular occasion from Niger.
The intelligence may have been dubious, which is the nature of the beast, but Saddam had previously made such purchases from other African nations. Many of Democrat charges against Bush spring from this episode. Ironically, the sloppiest "intelligence" of all was performed by Joe Wilson as recounted in his NY Times op ed piece.
The often insightful John Podhoretz has had this problem before: He seems to need to construct some sort of moral equivalence. For instance, on July 23 this year he wrote that "Honest conservatives and Republicans will admit that they felt a certain disappointment that the economy did not cave in after Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993."
I disputed this revisionist attempt at equivalence at the time since most of us with investments cheered the rising markets that followed (and put our money where are mouths were) to such an extent that the Fed chairman warned of "irrational exuberance" as the Dow pushed past 6,000 in December 1995. At the time, the rise was attributed (more properly in my view) to the public's perception that a Republican-controlled Congress would exercise greater fiscal restraint than did previous Democrat Congresses.
Unlike the anti-Bush crowd, the anti-Clinton folks have not resorted to factual fantasies to describe a president's behavior, in part because the liberal "mainstream" press would not have allowed them to get away with it. Podhoretz needs to take a deep breath and contemplate what he has asserted.