I agree with Bill Kristol, distorting truth is disgraceful, but it's commonplace when a writer is hellbent on putting out his spin to discredit the Bush Administration. And then, have allies in the media, who will defy logic in order to repeat and repeat the spin, until it gains common acceptance as truth.
Below is a partial transcript of CNN's Capital Gang, a good example of how the left works to preserve the deception, at least long enough for it to sink into the public consciousness as truth. You know the democrat's favorite tactic...repeat a lie often enough and people think it's true.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0305/31/cg.00.html
PERLE: I don't believe we should be embarrassed at all.[about not finding WMDs] We know what was produced. The United Nations documented what was produced. Saddam never accounted for it, even though he was given ample opportunity to do so. We had to assume that what couldn't be accounted for had been hidden. And indeed, we heard Iraqis talking to each other about hiding. What more could you want?
SHIELDS: Richard, and I just have to say that two mobile vans do not rise to the level of an imminent threat to the continental United States. And as presented by the president and the secretary of state, the case was that they were, they were really right around the corner, they were just basically off Nantucket and about to land.
PERLE: I don't think the argument was that it was imminent in time. He...
SHIELDS: Imminent threat to the United States.
PERLE: Well, if you know that you have a Saddam Hussein who is building weapons of mass destruction, whether he's going to attack in a week or a month or a year is beside the point. You have a threat that has to be dealt with.
NOVAK: I (UNINTELLIGIBLE)...
HUNT: But Paul Wolfowitz said in an interview out this weekend that it really was only a bureaucratic rationale.
PERLE: No, he didn't say that.
HUNT: Yes, he did. He said it was a...
PERLE: I've read the text of what he said.
HUNT: Well, I have too.
PERLE: And he was seriously misquoted in that article. And the misquotes in the wire service accounts are even worse than the misquotes...
HUNT: Those were direct quotes.
SHIELDS: It was a direct quote. He said, "A bureaucratic decision was made to go with weapons of mass destruction because there was a consensus on that."
PERLE: If you read...
SHIELDS: I read the article.
PERLE: ... the full quote, which is on the Defense Department Web site, precisely to counter the distortions, you will see that he said there were multiple reasons, all of which were stated by the president.
SHIELDS: OK."...
Count on it! Richard Perle didn't convince Al Hunt and Mark Shields to correct the Vanity Fair record. They (and others) are going to chew on President Bush about WMDs until they are found, and then they will switch gears and claim they were planted. Thousands of American soldiers weren't killed or poisoned by WMDs, so the left will never fogive President Bush his successful war on Saddam.
My question: Whythehell was Paul Wolfowitz granting interviews to Vanity Fair?
Why would anyone go to such a magazine for factual information? Sounds like the credibility level is on a par with the Enquirer. Smart of them to record the whole thing though. That should be SOP with all future interviews by all administration figures.