Lies, lying liars and "thoughtful conservatives"

I have to take exception with a couple of Publius's recent posts.

While I share some of the Elainian liberal evolutionary characteristics he describes, and while this is certainly true...

So here's why I'm having trouble summoning up the old outrage. First, my view of the administration has been intertwined with my view of their dishonesty about Iraq's nuclear program for so long that this isn't really news to me. It merely adds another data point to an already well-developed graph. [Remember to distinguish "nuclear" from the more general "WMD" -- it's a critical difference.]

More importantly, if this story actually did change anyone's mind, it's going to be hard for me to take that person seriously. If it's taken you until spring of 2006 to come around on the nuclear program, well, I'm sorry, but you've got problems. I know the 2004 election was supposed to be about gay marriage and national security. And in a sense, it was. But above all else, I think it was a referendum on the decision to go to war in Iraq -- and thus on the marketing of that war as well. So I'll have to agree with Rummy on this:

According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message.

That's exactly right. The American people had every opportunity in the world before the election to see the administration's misrepresentations about Iraq's nuclear program. They (and Richard Cohen) also had every opportunity in the world to see that Bush was determined to go to war no matter what. So I'm just not going to buy any storyline about how the administration fooled the innocent public and the pro-war chattering classes. I think Billmon captured the point in typical Billmon-fashion:

But it's still hard to escape the conclusion that the American people have had, generally speaking, plenty of opportunities to learn the filthy truth about this administration and this war -- that is, if they were actually interested in the truth, which many of them (up to 51%, judging from the last election) apparently are not.

What the health of the Republic requires, in other words, may not be a new crop of leakers and whistleblowers, or a fresh young generation of Woodwards and Bernsteins -- or even a more independent, aggressive media. What it may need is a new population.

It all reminds me of the old saying there's no need to lock the barn door after the horse got away. Americans had a chance prior to 2004 to punish this behavior and they chose not to. Now it's too late. I mean, it would be nice if this story upset them, but the damage has already been done.

That's why I'm opposed to the idea of impeachment and not all that excited about censure either -- what's the point? Impeach Bush and you get Cheney. If that's the choice, consider Legal Fiction "Dubya Country."

He and Billmon are certainly correct -- there was plenty of information out there for the 51 percent of voters who chose the incompetent incombant over John Kerry. That's why "Bush lied, people died" was a phrase that conservative screamers on the radio used so often to make fun of Dear Leader's shill critics. It was vital to turn that into a joke...because they knew it to be true. And so did plenty of voters who pulled that lever for "Dubya." They knew and, because they knew, pulled that lever. Because if they voted against that idiot and his war they'd be admitting that they supported the war knowing they were lied to and that they knew it at the time the war started with so much shock and awe.

Americans, we love us some shock and awe.

But that is where I must part ways with Publius. Frankly, it may not be good politics to rub the voters' collective noses in something they tacitly supported one year and five months ago (yes, we have two years and seven months to go). But censuring Bush for his lies, as well as illegal wiretapping (what Feingold intended), would prove that at least someone is paying attention. And that it matters. Ignoring it because that horse has left the barn...and is now cantering, terrified, on the interstate, causing drivers to veer into each other or off the road, would mean that there can be no accountability when a president takes his country to war.

Oh, and as for his second post, just as "there are no atheists in the foxholes," at this point in the "ascendancy" of the "conservative movement" and the trajectory of the George W. Bush presidency, there are no "thoughtful conservatives" to be found either.