Cover Dat Azz
by matt at 12:00 am on November 16th, 2005 in Bush Man Date, Iraq WarThere were hints last week, but the White House’s pushback strategy began in earnest over the weekend. As Fred Kaplan wrote in Slate on Monday, the strategy boils down to “I Was Wrong, but So Were You.” Kaplan goes point-by-point and rather than duplicate his work, I’ll send you over there. But as the CYA campaign propagates through the media and blogs, (even reaching our comments page) some important historical facts are slipping through the cracks.
The major component of the President’s defense is, of course, using past statements made by prominent Democrats in which they express the opinion that Saddam Hussein had WMD. We were even lucky enough to have a reader copy/paste a nice long list of quotes in the comments yesterday. At its most basic, stripped of all context, this reeks of the same moral relativism Republicans constantly accuse Democrats of using. It’s simply cowardly for the President to justify his own actions this way when for three years he has claimed Pope-like infallibility. And saying what amounts to “even Bill Clinton agreed” is both dishonest and hypocritical.
The administration would like Americans to believe that all 535 members in Congress saw page-for-page the same data that the President and Vice President saw. And because it’s easy to take advantage of the American people’s ignorance of their own government, they are advancing their cause. The Executive branch does not need Congress’ permission to classify documents, and can and has kept key information from them. Congressmen and Senators on the respective intelligence committees have a higher security clearance than other members, those on the select intelligence committees even higher. Information was rationed tightly and politics played an outsized role due to the proximity to the 2002 elections. If the threat was so grave, the carnage so imminent, why did the President go on vacation for a month before beginning his push for the war in September, the heart of the Congressional campaigns? His Chief of Staff Andy Card said:
“From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”
So when the (politically) cowardly Democrats made their statements, they made a serious mistake. But they did not, as most Republicans like to say, authorize a war, they empowered the President to go back to the United Nations and get a tougher resolution calling for invasive inspections. Yet despite jets patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones over Iraq and teams of weapons inspectors scouring the ground in Iraq, the President - the President alone - made the decision to ditch it all and give the order to invade. Bill Clinton wasn’t for it, and neither were most other Democrats. It makes no difference what they said four years earlier or six months earlier, to a man, they said let’s see what the inspectors find.
And through two and a half years, the President maintained that he did the right thing, but now that his poll numbers are scraping bottom, all of a sudden the man who doesn’t read polls is quoting every major Democrat in D.C. That’s not leadership, it’s cowardice and hypocrisy. Politicians who have faced the attack-dog wrath of the Karl Rove spin machine find themselves unwittingly supporting the President from back in time. Democrats who Republicans claim have never been right on anything (Pelosi, Durbin, Kerry, Albright, etc) now have been transformed into pillars of foreign policy because of their retroactive credibility. Call it the “thousand monkeys typing” gambit. How long will it be before the RNC rolls out Democratic quotes agreeing with the President on the need for moral values? Answer: five more points in the polls.
For an administration that has ruthlessly vilified their Democratic counterparts, digging up these quotes is ironic. More so when the people pulling Bill Clinton quotes are the same ones who maintain that criticizing the President during wartime is unpatriotic. How short their memories are (all quotes refer to the war in Kosovo, 1999):
Tom DeLay: “I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now. The President began this mission with very vague objectives and lots of unanswered questions. A month later, these questions are still unanswered. There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today.” Floor Statement, 4/28/99
Rick Santorum: “President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation’s armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy.”
Governor George W. Bush: “Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”
The reason we’re having a debate about pre-war intelligence is that we are no closer to winning than we were two years ago, but with 2,000 more dead American soldiers. The administration had no plan to win the war or the peace, and is now finally paying a political price for it. The buck stops with the President, but he passes it just like every other politician. The only difference is his claims of “moral clarity” and “crisp decision making.”
JimC wrote:
I’m flattered! Linking to my comments! Awesome! I was hoping you would get more people to read them.
The fact is that the reason the President has to make these kind of attacks on democrats is because after supporting him to give him authorization for taking military action (and if anyone believes the democrats didn’t know they were doing so, then God help you), the democrats now, with their media outlets, managed to wage a psy-op campaign against the American people by distorting the truth and vilifying the President.
I actually have more respect for Ted Kennedy; at least he’s been consistent.
I’ve asked this before but I will ask it again here. Even though we have not found WMD’s which was the primary reason for invading and that most available intel pointed towards Saddam’s WMD’s as being a threat, are the Iraqi people any less worthy of the freedom you and I enjoy? Do they not deserve it? I was watching a show on the Discovery Times channel called Off to War and the showed Iraqi people dodging mortar rounds so that they could vote! How moving it was to see these people desiring freedom even at the risk of their own lives. This has happened before and thank God for it. This nation started out on its journey to freedom under gunfire. There was even a liberty loving country that sent their sons to die for us so that we may enjoy freedom, yes France, hard to believe in this day and age that they were once a great nation. Had they not sent their sons to die for us, we might not have made here today. How selfish are you to deny that to the Iraqi people? Every time you call for our troops to be pulled out now or that it was a mistake to go there in the first place, just think of those people dodging mortar rounds so they can vote for their children’s freedom.
Yes I do believe this is a good reason to be there now. I believe it is worth it and I see these calls for withdrawal and these attacks on the President as a direct assault on freedom loving people in this world and also as a signal flare to the world that we are a selfish brat of nation consumed with materialistic greed.
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 7:10 am ¶
matt wrote:
>I’ve asked this before but I will ask it again here. Even though we have not found WMD’s which was the primary reason for invading and that most available intel pointed towards Saddam’s WMD’s as being a threat, are the Iraqi people any less worthy of the freedom you and I enjoy? Do they not deserve it?
Strawman argument, and you know it. Being worthy of freedom and trading the lives of 2000+ (and the health of 15,000 more) American soldiers are two totally different things.
>I see these calls for withdrawal and these attacks on the President as a direct assault on freedom loving people in this world
This is straight up garbage, and betrays either a shocking level of hypocrisy or a basic misunderstanding of what the freedom you so determinedly fetishize actually means. Freedom means that we should be able to criticize the President without being called unpatriotic or traitorous.
>and also as a signal flare to the world that we are a selfish brat of nation consumed with materialistic greed.
That’s your party chief. Greed is built into the rotting platform. Helping poor Iraqis: GREAT! Helping poor Americans: LET THEM STARVE!
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 8:30 am ¶
screwtape wrote:
“are the Iraqi people any less worthy of the freedom you and I enjoy? Do they not deserve it?”
They are not less worthy, but they do not deserve it. You have to fight for your own freedom. A people get the government they deserve.
Even if I were to agree that they deserved it, I would say that it is not the job of our military to do it for them. It is their job to protect us. Without WMD, Iraq was not a threat. With no threat, there is no need to waste the lives of our soldiers or our hundreds of BILLIONS of tax dollars.
There are dozens of dictators around the world as bad or worse than Sadaam. Some of them we consider to be allies. One of them is China. If freedom and democracy are the justification for invasion, why do we not invade them as well?
France did not give us their military assistance out of idealism or because they just loved the heck out of liberty. They did it for the same reason we armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan – it weakened their rivals. We were not invaded by France and given our freedom. We fought for it ourselves and France helped out. Had George the Slightly-Less-Stupid helped the Shiites overthrow Sadaam a’way back in ’91, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
“How selfish are you to deny that to the Iraqi people?”
Are you kidding? Republicans are cutting every kind of aid to poor people in this country to pay for tax cuts for the rich, an ill-conceived war with no end in sight, Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” and billions in corporate welfare for oil companies and you have the gall to suggest others are selfish?
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 8:56 am ¶
JimC wrote:
>”They are not less worthy, but they do not deserve it. You have to fight for your own freedom. A people get the government they deserve. ”
They do not deserve freedom? Are you communist?
>”Even if I were to agree that they deserved it, I would say that it is not the job of our military to do it for them. It is their job to protect us. Without WMD, Iraq was not a threat. With no threat, there is no need to waste the lives of our soldiers or our hundreds of BILLIONS of tax dollars.”
So we invade, find little WMD’s and decide, oops sorry, I guess you people are out of luck, because the people back home don’t think you are worth it, so good luck, hope it works out for you, steer clear of the guys toting RPG’s they’re nasty fellows…
>”There are dozens of dictators around the world as bad or worse than Sadaam. Some of them we consider to be allies. One of them is China. If freedom and democracy are the justification for invasion, why do we not invade them as well?”
I didn’t say freedom and democracy were the sole justification but we’re there now…plus we have to pick our battles. Yes Iraq is a strategic area for the Middle East and also happened to be one of the most brutal and troublesome. I don’t recall the last time we had to destroy any Chinese anti-aircraft missile batteries in recent history, but we sure had to do that with Iraq before the war…
“France did not give us their military assistance out of idealism or because they just loved the heck out of liberty. They did it for the same reason we armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan – it weakened their rivals. We were not invaded by France and given our freedom. We fought for it ourselves and France helped out. Had George the Slightly-Less-Stupid helped the Shiites overthrow Sadaam a’way back in ’91, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
See this show the root problem for you, we were not fighting the people of Iraq, we were fighting the jerky that was oppressing them. 90% of Iraq wanted Saddam gone and so we invaded Saddam’s Iraq and by result helped the people being oppressed by him. So in reality, like early Americans being help by the French, we helped the oppressed people of Iraq to by fighting the oppressor. This does align with the motives and the manner that the French helped us…
>”Are you kidding? Republicans are cutting every kind of aid to poor people in this country to pay for tax cuts for the rich, an ill-conceived war with no end in sight, Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere” and billions in corporate welfare for oil companies and you have the gall to suggest others are selfish?”
Again this is such a crock of pooh. You would rather enslave the poor by dictating how much money they get and keep them poor rather than using that money to get them a job. Futhermore, under this President, entitlements for the poor a far more than under Clinton, so how is that cutting exactly?
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 9:20 am ¶
screwtape wrote:
I wish you could hear yourself Jim.
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 10:49 am ¶
JimC wrote:
Acutally, I wish you could hear me…for no matter how logical I can make it for you, logic evades you…I am a software engineer and so logic is in my daily work. Most of what the left does is purely illogical. Like claiming 2000 soldiers lives to be a national disgrace but millions of unborn babies are ok? Dumbfounding…
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 12:41 pm ¶
screwtape wrote:
“I am a software engineer”
So you are the absolute authority on logic then? Infallible in the field? Are you Spock? I am a mechanical engineer with experience in about 6 programming languages. By your ridiculous standard, I think that means I can follow logic.
Your posts are all over the place. Abortion has nothing to do with this particular discussion. Your statements are loaded and insulting. Do you think asking me if I am a communist is not insulting? You mainly just regurgitate tired talking points or tirades from right-wing radio pundits. Try having a discussion instead.
By listening to FauxNews and their ilk you have adopted their language of “liberals are the source of all evil” and that prevents you from having a useful discussion. When you dismiss other people and their arguments without even listening to them, it does not make for a constructive conversation. In your case it precludes you from having a civil discussion.
You are rude and cliché. I will not reply to anything else you have to say.
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 2:09 pm ¶
JimC wrote:
“screwtape Says: ”
I’m trying to understand the logic of the left wing mind. Please help….
Also, I didn’t say that I am the authority in logic simply that it is part of my job.
Abortion is releveant as it goes to understanding the logic behind the motive of the liberal…i.e. why is it that such an outrage is made over the deaths of volunteer soldiers, and I was once a volunteer myself having served in the Army National Guard, so I knew the risks when taking the oath of service and what could happen. I had no illusions. I was at Ft. Benning, GA when Saddam invaded Kuwait (this dates me) but my unit was not called up then. But I knew the risks and the honor of service. Now having said that, the liberal mind as I can tell tries to play advocate for soldiers who don’t want them to (by an overwheleming majority) however, these same liberals won’t even acknowledge any attempt to give the unborn child rights??? 2000 soldiers in 3 years and millions of unborn children in the same timespan, it is this logic that really drives me nuts…
So all of this, every post is to try to figure you people out, so that I can possibly understand you and better communicate with you…for you don’t speak my language but somehow you’re all over the TV, newspapers, and radio influencing us…
Foxnews is the only channel where you can see both sides of the story as opposed to the other stations, so yeah I guess you would think them radically right wing…how dare them to give both sides a fair shake. If you don’t think they do, watch Hannity and that alan guy…makes my skin crawl with some of the illogical arguments made…
So, yeah, maybe I’m off topic here but I still am trying to figure you guys out, so give me a break….
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 2:51 pm ¶
jerome the underpants gnome wrote:
I don’t have anything to contribute to this debate but I would just like to say that i think it’s great that Jim is even here at all to make it a debate. I know things get heated and most of the time no one is going to truly change many minds but I think that’s the root of the greatness of this country, that we are allowed to HAVE the debate at all, to disagree time and time again and still be Americans. Just don’t get too caught up in the labels beyond that. Keep that one in mind. It’s hard to see in one lifetime but everything balances out.
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 6:07 pm ¶
jerome the underpants gnome wrote:
and no, I don’t want to have a f***ing group hug.
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 6:08 pm ¶