But Clinton said so...
I don't usually quote Duncan Black because I assume he's the hub of all lefty blogger traffic each day. But this is exactly something I was thinking about as I walked past the FauxNews building in Manhattan last evening while the ticker outside the building was declaiming (I paraphrase): Administration: Clinton thought Iraq had WMD too...
I'd go a little further and state that, whatever Clinton thought, he was not using expressions such as "our smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud." In other words, he did not see the threat as so dire as to commit U.S. troops to overthrowing the regime and throwing Iraq into a death spiral.
As for Congress, one more time with feeling: Democrats had little choice but to vote to give the president authorization to use force to disarm Iraq. If they hadn't there would have been a political price to pay (little did they know at the time, that Rove would exact that price regardless of their support for the administration), but more importantly, when the president threatens another country with the use of force to disarm that country, it would be internationally foolhardy for Congress to not back up the president's threats -- we would appear unmanageably weak. And keep in mind, authorization to use force is not a declaration of war.
The point of the authorization -- or so those of us who supported giving it to Bush at the time -- was to put teeth into our demands, both to Iraq and to the UN so that the weapons inspectors would be given free and unfettered access to do their job. And, of course it did do exactly that. And the inspectors found nothing. But by that time, the Bush administration had put into motion an invasion plan they never had any intention of scuttling, regardless of the evidence the inspectors brought.
David Brooks can wank all he wants (sorry, TimesManure), but the administration mislead, deceived, lied, and fabricated to work the country into a lather for war.
Just because Clinton may have believed something does not necessarily make it true. I didn't think we needed to remind conservatives of that, but it's also something liberals believe. There never was a personality cult of the Clenis (except, oddly, on the right) which turned us all into his Lemmings.
I'd go a little further and state that, whatever Clinton thought, he was not using expressions such as "our smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud." In other words, he did not see the threat as so dire as to commit U.S. troops to overthrowing the regime and throwing Iraq into a death spiral.
As for Congress, one more time with feeling: Democrats had little choice but to vote to give the president authorization to use force to disarm Iraq. If they hadn't there would have been a political price to pay (little did they know at the time, that Rove would exact that price regardless of their support for the administration), but more importantly, when the president threatens another country with the use of force to disarm that country, it would be internationally foolhardy for Congress to not back up the president's threats -- we would appear unmanageably weak. And keep in mind, authorization to use force is not a declaration of war.
The point of the authorization -- or so those of us who supported giving it to Bush at the time -- was to put teeth into our demands, both to Iraq and to the UN so that the weapons inspectors would be given free and unfettered access to do their job. And, of course it did do exactly that. And the inspectors found nothing. But by that time, the Bush administration had put into motion an invasion plan they never had any intention of scuttling, regardless of the evidence the inspectors brought.
David Brooks can wank all he wants (sorry, TimesManure), but the administration mislead, deceived, lied, and fabricated to work the country into a lather for war.
posted by John at 11:01 AM
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