Weapons Of Mass Deception
By Trevor Bothwell (07/26/03)
The best evidence yet that President Bush lied when he said Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Niger has arrived: Bill Clinton said he didn’t.
Some commentators like Bill O’Reilly have cooed that they’ve actually gained a fleck of respect for the former president after he recently defended George W.’s use of The Sixteen Words and reinforced Saddam’s possession of WMDs, but I’m not buying it. Rather than angering Democratic leaders and the party’s presidential hopefuls, it’s more likely that the comments of Mr. I Did Not Have Sexual Relations will actually satisfy their ongoing attempts to discredit the current commander-in-chief.
After all, who better to persuade us that the president is a fraud than the Democrats’ most successful liar? It’s a brilliant strategy, really. Since the midterm elections last November practically proved that most Americans will believe the exact opposite of what a Clinton says (at least for the time being), maybe Terry McAuliffe decided to go for broke. If Bill Clinton says the president isn’t a liar, why then, he must be!
Okay, perhaps that’s a little too much hyperbole. But I still think it’s a good theory. Nevertheless, even if Bill Clinton’s latest proclamation was the first stride in his “12 Steps to Honesty” program, don’t be too hasty to assume he intended Bush any approval by refusing to join in the chorus condemning the president’s war in Iraq.
Unlike President Bush, whose political decisions are driven primarily by his moral underpinnings, Clinton’s policy calculations were almost exclusively motivated by public polls. Evidently, he’s still at it. With Bush’s approval ratings resting around 55%, why would Clinton jeopardize his wife’s chances in 2008 by alienating moderate Democratic voters? Let’s also not forget that accusing Bush of lying would only recall his own mendacity. Ironically enough, Bill Clinton reminds us of the eventual price of crying wolf: Americans aren’t likely to believe his defense of President Bush now anyway, even if his remarks were genuine.
So, the Democrats are still left with a huge problem. They know the only way to unseat President Bush in 2004 is to turn Americans against him. But instead of offering up alternative ideas to Bush’s foreign and domestic policies, Democrats are apparently content to turn to melodrama in the attempt to invent a presidential scandal.
In their latest attempts to prove that the elite media isn’t biased, Congressional Democrats and liberals have ridden the press’s obsessive coverage of their accusations that President Bush intentionally hyped intelligence reports on Iraq’s nuclear intentions and consequently duped the country into war. Democrats now argue that WMDs probably don’t even exist, when only months ago they used their very presence as a reason to avoid war.
In one of the MRA’a (Media’s Republic of America) most influential newspapers, the Washington Post, an article today (July 24) states, “Soldiers are still dying in Iraq, and the administration is on the defensive about its justification for going to war.” Fourth graders understand perfectly why the United States went to war in Iraq, but the country’s enlightened class can’t seem to figure out why the world is better off without a regime of unapologetic murdering and raping thugs.
On the day that we found out we killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, Rep. Charles Rangel not only refused to commend George W. Bush and our troops, but asked why he should be impressed that we got a couple of “bums.” Bums? Apparently, run-of-the-mill criminals are to be equated with two tyrants who would make Castro blush. Mr. Rangel also lamented that the United States “assassinated” Saddam’s sons, citing that this sort of act is against rules of engagement. Perhaps the congressman would prefer that we firebombed entire villages just to dispose of two people?
Questioning the efficiency of intelligence gathering, debating the extent of our occupation of Iraq, and overall costs of the war on terror is healthy for the country. But today’s Democrats are more concerned with making vituperative assertions assailing the president’s character than they are about even giving the impression that they care about our interests of national security.
Engaging in silly politicking is to be expected prior to election time, but Americans should pay close attention to the party doing all the bickering. Some conservatives have expressed concern that President Bush hasn’t done enough to combat the rhetoric coming from his opponents, but while this may be true, we can take comfort in knowing that he understands which battles he should currently be fighting.
Liberals can claim that Bush has taken the country to war in order to suit his own re-election ambitions, but as many experts have noted, he potentially has much more to lose politically than to gain by doing so. Just reference all the heat he’s taken so far about the “failing” economy and military deaths. However, the principle difference between Mr. Bush and his Democratic adversaries should be evident. While Democrats have made it clear that they will resort to anything to win the presidency next year, I believe George W. Bush would gladly concede it if it meant not doing right by his country while he served.
We may never fully know the true intent of Bill Clinton’s defense of President Bush’s war efforts. But one thing is certain: if in fact it is Bill Clinton who’s finally the one telling the truth, the Democrats might be in big trouble for years.
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