W's message is still undelivered

On Monday, Vice President Cheney went to Florida, where he reasserted there were "long established ties" between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

Yesterday, during a Rose Garden news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a reporter invited President Bush to dissociate himself from this crime against conventional wisdom. "As you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community," the reporter said. "Would you add any qualifiers? What do you think is the best evidence of it?"

An annoyed look came over the President's face. It was boiling in the midday Washington sun. Poor bald Karzai was standing there without his lambskin hat, sweating. Bush was hot, too, and hungry; He had already mentioned lunch.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the current jihad commander in Iraq, lived in Baghdad before Saddam's overthrow. No foreigners - certainly no notorious international Islamic terrorist foreigners - lived in the Iraqi capital without connections to Saddam and his regime.

Bush would like the country to take this as prima facie evidence of the Saddam-Osama Bin Laden relationship. But it won't. The President hasn't made the case.

Partly, this is the press corps' fault. As a recent Pew study revealed, journalists who work for elite national organizations are almost entirely liberal or moderate. Most won't vote for Bush. Many want to see him lose.

The idea that Bush invaded Iraq under false pretenses - and that Saddam had nothing to do with Bin Laden - is an integral part of the case against the President. Nothing less than a videotape of Saddam being inducted into Al Qaeda would constitute the sort of proof the press is now demanding.

But Bush has mostly himself to blame for the public's skepticism. He earned it by not telling the truth about why the U.S. went after Saddam. This is what he should have said after 9/11: "The Arab world has declared war on us. For decades, a great anti-American front has been building from North Africa to the Persian Gulf. The Saudi royal family and its Wahhabi missionaries belong to this front. So do the ayatollahs of Iran and their Lebanese surrogates, Islamic and Palestinian terrorist groups and Baathist dictators like the Assads of Syria - and Saddam Hussein.

"Some of these enemies are Shiite; some Sunni. Some secular, some Wahhabi. These are meaningless distinctions. The anti-American forces in the Mideast know one another and cooperate in shifting alliances.

"Our job now is to end this jihad by knocking the wind out of it. We could start in a lot of places, but Iraq -the heart of the Arab world - seems most effective. Everyone in the Middle East knows that this is war and that Saddam is engaged in it. Knocking him off will demonstrate the danger of being on the wrong side."

This is the real reason that Bush went into Iraq. But he didn't say so. It would have sounded too harsh in America's politically correct climate. Worse, such frankness would have offended the Saudis. Bush chose a different approach. He declared war on terrorism. He was being intentionally ambiguous - and now his political rivals have turned that ambiguity against him.

The President would like to intone "Zarqawi" and close the case on Saddam. But it won't work. Before this election is over, he'll to have to name the real enemy -Islamic fascism - or wind up looking like a man who went to war by mistake.

It's not my problem if you don't understand what's relevant to what you're talking about and what's not.

Wow! That makes me feel so warm and fuzzy all over. I mean... I just love to have people misunderstand my posts on purpose and then school me on my faults. I really don't know how I got along without you for so long...

what I said was completely relevant

That's your opinion only... sorry if I disagree with you and especially sorry that it seems to upset you so much.

why did you argue?

Who's arguing with you for crying out loud... I am disagreeing with you on one central point. You seem to think the President has painted himself into some predicament because he hasn't been able to articulate himself well... I am saying that even though the President isn't the world's greatest communicator he has not done that...

Why the h**l do you come to Free Republic?

Because I like to be talked down to by blowhards like you..why do you come to Free Republic? So you can pontificate and advance your opinions and lecture those who don't think you are correct?

tell people to Shut up if they do?

Have I told you to shut up? No...of course not... (and you know I haven't)

If what I did was (as you now seem to be acknowledging) add a relevant comment, how can that be "changing the subject"?

This is too much... if you really believe this last comment, then you have a serious problem... that won't be solved by hectoring me...

I'm going to do you a big favor... I'm going to give you the last word... because being right at all cost seems to be very important to you.

I just love to have people misunderstand my posts on purpose and then school me on my faults.

I did not misunderstand your post, and if you think that I did, you are wrong.

[what I said was completely relevant] That's your opinion only... sorry if I disagree with you

Here's the funny part, whether you agree what I said was relevant seems to vary from time to time. Here's you way back at the beginning of Post #97: "you jumped into the middle of a conversation and changed the subject." But later in Post #97: "I didn't say that it's irrelevant." Here's you now (Post #101 in response to "completely relevant"): "I disagree". Let me know if/when you make up your mind.

and especially sorry that it seems to upset you so much.

Wow, who's upset? I'm more bemused than anything else at this point. :-)

Who's arguing with you for crying out loud... I am disagreeing with you on one central point.

Perhaps you ought to look up the word "argue" in the dictionary.

You seem to think the President has painted himself into some predicament because he hasn't been able to articulate himself well...

Yes, that is a fair summary of my point.

I am saying that even though the President isn't the world's greatest communicator he has not done that...

In other words, you're arguing. Which is fine. We have a difference of opinion then. What's the problem?

why do you come to Free Republic? So you can pontificate and advance your opinions and lecture those who don't think you are correct?

No, so that I can discuss current events. This indeed will involve advancing my opinions but until now it had never involved having someone chastise me for advancing my opinions because they, despite participating in a discussion forum, did not want to hear any contrary opinions.

Have I told you to shut up? No...of course not... (and you know I haven't)

You're right, you didn't use those words. It was a paraphrase not a quote. cf. lack of quotation marks.

[I said: saying something relevant is not "changing the subject"] This is too much... if you really believe this last comment, then you have a serious problem...

Again: Saying something relevant is not "changing the subject". I'm flabbergasted that you think it is. If I say X and X is relevant then it's part of "the subject". There is no other definition of "relevant" than "part of the subject". Relevant = part of the subject. If something is part of the subject, it is relevant; if it were not part of the subject, it would be irrelevant; a thing can't be both relevant and not part of the subject, at the same time. There's only so many ways I can explain this.

I'm going to do you a big favor... I'm going to give you the last word...

Ok. Bye-bye.

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