Posted on 10/11/2003 12:46:46 PM PDT by dirtboy
For weeks now, to the point of annoyance, we’ve witnessed Democratic politicians and liberal media talking heads stating that the threat from Saddam wasn’t imminent, as President Bush had claimed. Nancy Pelosi said it, as did Senators Levin and Rockefeller. The AP and Reuters have claimed it. Bob Edwards on NPR stated it as fact in a softball question to Terry McAuliffe during an NPR interview. By the time the Kay Report was made public, the NY Times felt the lie well-positioned enough to incorporate it into their opening front-page salvo against the evidence Kay presented:
“Analysis: preliminary report delivered by David Kay, chief arms inspector in Iraq, forces Bush administration to come face to face with this reality: that nothing found so far backs up administration claims that Saddam Hussein posed imminent threat to world”
However, anyone who gets their news from non-PIPA approved media outlets is well aware that Bush said nothing of the sort. As a refresher, here are Bush’s actual comments from the 2003 State of the Union Address:
"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late."
So why would the Dems so transparently alter Bush’s clear meaning here? I initially chalked it up to their pathological tendency to play games with the truth, whether they need to or not. However, upon reflecting upon Charles Krauthammer’s brilliant analysis in his column WMDs in a Haystack, the purpose and timing of this lie and the need for the Dems to distort what Bush said becomes clear. From Krauthammer:
“Ekeus theorizes that Hussein decided years ago that it was unwise to store mustard gas and other unstable and corrosive poisons in barrels, and also difficult to conceal them. Therefore, rather than store large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, he would adapt the program to retain an infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could "break out" and ramp up production when needed. The model is Japanese "just in time" manufacturing, where you save on inventory by making and delivering stuff in immediate response to orders. Except that Hussein's business was toxins, not Toyotas.” (emphasis mine)
The Kay Report found the framework of an extensive chemical and biological weapons program, but no weapons themselves. Above and beyond the possibility that the finished weapons themselves are either still hidden or were shipped to another country such as Syria, the existence of this kind of program was both a vindication of the decision to invade and of Bush’s postulation that we should not wait until the threat is imminent.
Hence the need to alter the debate and Bush’s very words.
By shifting the debate to a position where the threat from Saddam was stated by Bush as imminent, the Dems basically are attempting to make the just-in-time manufacturing approach from Saddam irrelevant to the case against him, and the Kay Report, instead of being a justification for the war, instead becomes damnation of Bush and more “evidence” that Bush lied to get us into war.
But the timing is rather interesting – the Dems started lying about this well before the Kay Report went public. How could they have been aware of the need to engage in damage control over the Kay Report and lay the groundwork of widespread lying before the report came out?
I believe that the answer lies in Kay’s initial Senate briefing on his findings that happened in late July. Kay made it clear that Saddam had engaged in an extensive deception campaign to hide his WMD programs. I would also speculate that Kay confided to the Senators present that he had found programs but no weapons. It is my belief that at least one Dem Senator, seeing the problems that Kay’s findings would present to their attacks on Bush, saw the need to change Bush’s position regarding the threat from Saddam, hence the sudden barrage of claims from the Dems that Bush stated the threat from Saddam was imminent.
If this is the case, a Dem Senator took a classified briefing and used it for purely political purposes. It would be very interesting to track this lie back in time and see when it went into widespread Dem use.
That's because the news media operates almost entirely without fear of consequences for their actions. Our libel and slander laws are so weak and so heavily tilted in favor of the media on First Amendment grounds, that they are all but totally above both civil and criminal law. There is virtually no line they cannot cross. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Therein lies the method to their defeat: For every commercial the dems run, create a counterpart showing the dem claim and Bush actually making the statement. Ditto for the debates, let the democrat make his false claim then have the actual video of the speech cued up.
They have become so bold in their lies that it is easy to show they are lying.
Contemptuous, yes, but even worse in my opinion. It's seditious — in the case of some reporters, commentators, and even Dem politicians, I would say deliberately so.
My hopes are somewhat more ambitious than that -- because of the consequences you describe. I hope the liberal Democrats are metaphorically squashed like a bug. Thence, expelled from serious public discourse forever. Yet, kept caged and alive so as to exhibit their malevolence -- as in a roadside reptile farm.
My reason is the 40% figure you cited above. Remember Lincoln's imprecation: No nation divided against itself can long survive. If 40% of the population is permanently alienated and disaffected, we have little chance of surviving...without another civil war.
So long as there is a functioning liberal Democrat party -- feeding them lies, playing to their victimhood, exhorting them to hate and supporting them with tax dollars via the vehicle of Big Government -- that 40%, while it may not grow, will fester.
I guess I'm past the point of generously thinking the Democrats can no longer be trusted and must reform themselves. It's as if they've become our own version of the Ba'ath party and must be destroyed...lest they destroy America.
Somewhat apocalyptic but...there you have it. I think Teddy Kennedy might be responsible for sending me over the line.
Paired with yours, they make dandy bookends for a collection of media tripe.
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