… but on the other hand, it means I don’t have to type as much.
Some of the White House jabs against their critics these days are so fatuous and simple-minded that it’s hard not to step back every so often and wonder if they’re even serious.
One of the silliest goes like this. We invaded because Iraq was "a threat". And all the Democrats agree that Iraq was "a threat". And, heck, here’s this quote from Bill Clinton saying that Saddam was "a threat". So clearly everyone agreed with the president. So what’s the problem?
Perhaps it seems like I’m oversimplifying the argument. But I really must plead its inherently moronic nature.
Sure, lots of people thought Iraq was a threat. But North Korea is a very serious threat. And we haven’t invaded North Korea. And Iran’s no bed of roses either. But we haven’t invaded Iran, though I guess perhaps I shouldn’t speak too soon.
Right on. But (after a while), he really echoes what has been in my head for ages:
Garden variety lying is knowing it’s Y and saying it’s X — Lyndon Johnson at the Gulf of Tonkin. This is a much deeper indifference to factual information in itself.
People ask me sometimes whether I think the president thought Saddam did have big stockpiles of WMD or whether he knew Saddam didn’t and lied about it. Or the same with Iraq’s alleged links to al Qaida. This even leads to a sort of inverted conspiracy theorizing when people ask, "If he knew there was no WMD, why didn’t they at least try to plant some to avoid the catastrophic embarrassment which ensued after the war."
The real answer, I think, is as banal as it is devastating: I don’t think they ever gave it much thought — not in the sense of trying to get to the heart of the matter. A lawyer assembles a case. Whether his client is innocent or not is sort of beside the point. He’s trying to get him acquitted. Very similar here. The point was to invade. Non-conventional weapons made it a real possibility. A connection to 9/11 would make it a slam dunk. Some of each might get you just past the goal line. And if that didn’t something else might.
This is why there was the bum’s rush for the inspections process. I’m sure they figured there were some chemical weapons to be found somewhere. But why take the chance that there weren’t, or more likely, why take the chance there wouldn’t be enough? That would defeat the whole purpose.
The emphasis is mine, and that’s the part I’m keen on.
Bush didn’t approach this war as an impartial man. He was an advocate for a position he had already taken. As such, like a lawyer, he marshalled evidence which favored him and presented it as "the truth".
This is not inherently BAD — after all, being a lawyer (and taking a position) is how I earn MY living. But here’s the difference: I work within a system which permits some other lawyer to take a contrary position. And the rules of evidence require us to exchange all our evidence — favorable and unfavorable — to the other side. That way, everybody walks into court with the same hand. And hopefully, with the two advocates taking contrary positions on the evidence, the TRUTH (which typically lies somewhere in the middle) will out.
The Bush Administration troubles me — not for the position they took — but for the disservice they engaged in by not revealing all the evidence. They turned over intelligence to Congress and the American people, but only in a perversely skewed way which favors the decision the Administration had already made. It didn’t have the adversarial protections that make our judicial system work. So, of COURSE many elected officials and citizenry came down "in favor of" the Iraq invasion. The deck was stacked that way from the get-go. Intentionally.
Josh calls this a "toxic approach to governance". That is it exactly.
And indeed, had there actually been WMDs in Iraq, or an actual Saddam-alQaeda link, the American people wouldn’t have felt bamboozled by the White House’s slight-of-hand (even though, technically, we were bamboozled anyway). But the Bush Administration took that risk — or more probably, ignored the risk — that their prevarifications about Iraq’s threat would be confirmed. It backfired. And the only people who should suffer ramifications for that — politically speaking — are them, not the so-called "naysayers" and critics.