Enough to Make a Lib Cry

[TENAC]

Wow, and this was actually printed in the WPost.

On another board, myself and other conservatives constantly battled and refuted liberal claims to "Bush Lied" over and over.  It was a statement forever taken out of context and placed so that the appearance of untruth was made.  But it could never stick, because, at this point, there is nothing to note that the president lied but based judgements on the intel at hand and was supported by a majority of congress at the time. 

Rockefeller is taken to task here by the writer and correctly so.

'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple.
   

By Fred Hiatt
Monday, June 9, 2008; Page A17


There's no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.
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On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism. 

WOW!  This is Rockefellers report. 

Rockefeller's.  How much of this was trumpeted by the msm?  I huge fault of Bush, in my opinion is his refusal to toot his own horn from time to time.  It is admirable, but sometimes you have to point things out.

Lets read more honestly and truth for shock value:

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: "There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance?  I do not think we can."[/b]  Rockefeller's words.

Rockefeller was reminded of that statement by the committee's vice chairman, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who with three other Republican senators filed a minority dissent that includes many other such statements from Democratic senators who had access to the intelligence reports that Bush read. The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report's preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, "the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers' statements were substantiated by the intelligence."


I dont know Hiatt, or if he will be employed by the WPost after such a dissection of a liberal senators words, but they are telling.

Go read the entire column.  It is great reading and shows an unbias as the piece points out what Clinton had to deal with and the next president might. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html

[Acumen]

And this leaves us with the ultimate question, why the need to release this report now?

[SquirleyWurley]

One of the rhetorical battles I fought, repeatedly, and despairingly, in the time leading up to the Iraq War, was to sort out the facts, to seriously consider defense concerns, intelligence data, dangers, options, and to make sure that criticisms were based in accuracy, reasonable causes for concern, substantiated fears, sound principle.

I was a critic.  I was wary, even if the UN was going to be behind it, even if we had more allies supporting us.  For various reasons.  But I was not all-out-against action, I was not necessarily against what the Bush Administration said.  This made it difficult, because on many forums, the ideologues had their way: on 'both sides' -- which always annoyed me because with so many millions of people on EITHER side, and with such a complex issue, surely it wasn't so simple.

Which is why I say, both 'sides' are ideological and demagogic, to varying degrees, and this is a serious issue for our country in and of itself.

My rhetorical battle was (and continues to be) AGAINST the worst abuses of rhetoric.  And it's difficult, because it's easy to fall into it when unwary or angry or whatever, and because it's so hard to get the point across.

MY impression of the REALITY, that is, of the SUBSTANCE, behind many the criticisms of various opponents of the Bush Administration... is that Bush managed to (somehow) imply and direct many people in various directions which lead them to believe things that just weren't true, to assume things that weren't all that substantiated at all, to consider things to be wise or solid when they were arguably foolish or slippery.  His bumbling way with words may be part of it, he says a snippet and then wanders on, and in the process he addresses snippets, people get what they want to hear out of it, if they already are willing to support whatever initiative he put on the table.  Some of it is no doubt from his coaches and script-writers, and some of it may be because of clever manoeuvers within the administration (of varying degrees of disrepute), at least Cheney and Rumsfeld.  Part of it is because the media read things into what Bush and others in the Admin said fueled it, shaped it, guided it, encouraged it, subtly.  Several media errors were simply not corrected because it is inconvenient to correct those who are arguing for your proposal.  In fact, many people believed all sorts of unsubstantiated things, and Fox News, for example, but also CNN and others, did not help sift out things adequately.  The White House didn't help either, they left the mess as it was, because they saw the mess as helpful.

Destabilizing the Middle East is one goal among many that a White House adviser may have.  Granted, 'stabilizing' some region in the Middle East so it is more free or less chaotic or more friendly to the US, would be another goal among many that a White House adviser may have.  That's the reality.  Some in the cabinet did want the goals that were said, honesetly.  Others... not so much.