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JDM vs the WORLD

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FINE PRINT

By now you know the story of George Washington, who, after chopping down his dad’s cherry tree, admitted guilt with the famous words, “Father, I cannot tell a lie.”

As modern presidential mythology would have it, another George W., this one named Bush, not only can tell a lie but did when he cherry-picked evidence to make his case for a Second Gulf War—the First of which, as you well know, was waged by his dear old dad.

Well, not only does history tend to repeat itself, but news cycles are such nowadays that revisionists rewrite it in real-time. Or at least that’s the impression you’d get from all these war opponents up in arms—pun intended—over one single line from George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech. That line, in the off chance you missed it, is as follows: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

The problem is that some now doubt this statement’s validity. Whereas the British government insists its intelligence was accurate, CIA Director George Tenet both discounts its absolute certainty and takes blame for letting it through the SOTU sieve.

And there are those, of course, who see this round of confusion as proof that the president purposely lied—indeed, that he mixed-and-matched intelligence in building his case for invasion. DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe, for example, says, “This may be the first time in recent history that a president knowingly misled the American people during the State of the Union address.” How McAuliffe can say this with a straight face, God only knows, since his buddy Bill Clinton surely lied in his SOTU when he told us, “The era of big government is over.”

Look around, Terry. The era of big government’s practically just getting started.

As for the Democratic Party’s presidential contenders—well, let’s just say the uranium story is like a wet dream come true. John Kerry, for one, who voted for the war but never supported it, and who—it might be noted—fought in Vietnam, is going around saying Bush deceived us into battle. In other words, Kerry either: (a) Voted in favor of the invasion so he could play both sides of the aisle in the months to come; (b) Admits he was duped by the current commander-in-chief, something most White House hopefuls would keep to themselves; or (c) Fought in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, there’s Howard Dean, who became a household name in a couple of thousand MoveOn.org subscribers’ households by way of his anti-war stance. Yes, even while Saddam’s statue fell and children danced in the streets of Baghdad, Dean—quite heroically—stuck to his position like hair to a balloon. Now looking to burst Bush’s bubble, Dean says of the uranium flap, “It’s beginning to sound a little like Watergate,” which, for a guy who’s running for president, translates to, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” Either way, it’s a bit of a stretch, unless a certified crime is somehow comparable to a case for war less than two years removed from the senseless destruction of 3,000 American lives.

As for Bob Graham, his campaign’s hinged on removing Bush from the White House at all costs, as his recent hints of impeachment would seem to suggest. Says the senator of the uranium issue: “If the standard of impeachment is the one the House Republicans used against Bill Clinton, this clearly comes within that standard.” Of course, there’s a big difference between perjury and a made-for-TV speech, but let’s keep that between you and me—Graham doesn’t need to know.

Did I mention John Kerry fought in Vietnam?

Look, I don’t want to get too wrapped up in the presidential contenders here, since they’re obviously only acting like most men do when they run for the Oval Office. That said, however, I mentioned revisionist history a moment ago, and there’s a good reason why. Namely, because the barbarians at the Uraniumgate are acting as if this dubious evidence was Bush’s only count against Saddam. It wasn’t. It was one of many—and, in fact, one of too many, if we’re to believe the pre-war critics who used to say Bush failed to make one solid case for war.

More confounding still, every clip and phrase in a presidential speech is measured, weighed, and inspected by trusty No. 7—so if, as the allegation goes, Bush used only the choicest bits of intelligence to make his case for war, why on Earth would he chose a nugget of wisdom he knew full well could be fool’s gold? I understand some people think Bush is dumb, but that dumb? Come on.

And, on that note, isn’t it also disingenuous for the Hate Bush crowd to accuse the president of cherry-picking when they’re doing the same exact thing? What I mean is, the “Inspections Work” camp is so convinced that Bush is the Anti-Christ—or the Anti-Christ’s religion-free PC equivalent, Christ Himself (think about it)—that they’re building whole narratives around what few examples of possible deception they can find. If that isn’t “dishonest salesmanship,” as Paul Krugman puts it, then I don’t know what is.

Next time Kerry, Dean, and Graham badmouth tax cuts and unemployment, let’s hear them give equal time to the great many reasons why Washington doesn’t need a regime change. If these guys are willing to stop cherry-picking campaign motives, and if they’re willing to admit Iraq and Afghanistan are better off without the Baath Party and Taliban, then we can talk. Otherwise, have their people call our people—the people—when reality sinks in.

But the thing that ought to get under your skin the most here is the fact that—as an endless number of people have pointed out—Bush’s statement was technically, factually correct. He never said that Saddam sought uranium. He said that the British said Saddam sought uranium, and that’s entirely true. The British really did say that. What’s more, they stand by their story. Seeing as how some of these anti-war hawks once defended Clinton for asking what the definition of “is” is, you’d think they’d accept the fact that, semantically speaking, Bush was dead on. But no. They don’t even accept the fact that the British are a part of this story.

I almost couldn’t believe it when I read about it in Byron York’s National Review piece, but I checked for myself and it’s true: The DNC’s Web site has posted an ad imploring Americans to take a long, hard look at the president—to “Read His Lips,” as it were—and the centerpiece is a clip of the now infamous SOTU quote… formatted to fit your screen and/or their agenda.

“Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” Bush says in the DNC remix of his original statement. Note that what he actually said—“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”—infers something else. By conveniently nixing six words from a sixteen-word sentence, this ad effectively alters Bush’s meaning and misrepresents what he said.

The ad goes on to say that the CIA and the State Department both believed the uranium intelligence was bunk as far back as a year ago. For this, they credit their source as the New York Times. This would be the same so-called paper of record whose grip on concrete facts is so strong that Jayson Blair slipped lies through the system with all the regularity of your average bodily function. But that aside, to say that the CIA and State Department had doubts is to tell just half the story, seeing as how an equally prominent source, the British government, had no such reservations.

Not that this should surprise you. The DNC’s been treating our all-important allies like chopped political liver for months now, as was apparent once the cries of American unilateralism began.

Before a joint session of Congress last week, Tony Blair told America, on behalf of Great Britain, “You’re not going to be alone. We will be with you in this fight for liberty.” Europeans portray this guy as Bush’s lapdog, which is all in good fun, I guess, but it’s a thoroughly fictional assessment. If, in fact, this leftist prime minister was our conservative president’s meek and sniveling toady, does anyone honestly believe Bush would’ve gone to the Security Council a second time at Blair’s urging? Of course not, and it wasn’t just Bush who went back to the UN—it was Bush and Blair as equal partners.

So, America, quite literally, couldn’t’ve been acting unilaterally, since the word “unilateral,” according to Merriam Webster, means something that’s “done or undertaken by one person or party.”

Let’s do the math here: Bush is one person. Blair is one person. With the possible exception of holy matrimony, one plus one always, always, always equals two—not one, nor any word containing the “uni-” prefix

Even if you excluded every other country that supported us—Australia, Italy, Spain, and so on—the very fact that the United Kingdom joined the United States in this excursion means, by definition, we were not acting unilaterally. How can we trust the DNC’s judgment on Saddam’s weapons programs when we can’t even trust them with a simple ten-letter word like “unilateral”?

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not defending faulty intelligence for the sake of defending faulty intelligence. But we don’t even know if the uranium information was, in fact, faulty, and that’s the real issue here. September 11th may or may not have been preventable, but if it can be said that the attacks were partly caused by intelligence folly, then the Second Gulf War—more than anything else—was the end result of our government’s not wanting to drop the ball again. It’s as if the Bush administration looked around after 9/11 and said, “Hey, what other problems have we been ignoring?” And after a decade of defiance, Saddam Hussein presented just such a problem.

That intelligence isn’t one-hundred percent reliable isn’t exactly something new. To treat it as such—and to reframe the pre-war debate with this post-war opinion—diminishes both our soldiers’ accomplishments as well as the threat posed by this very dangerous dictator. It’s not like we needed our intelligence agencies to conclude Saddam was interested in weapons of mass destruction. His legacy and brazen refusal to comply with UN resolutions concluded as much.

And while there are legitimate criticisms to make about the handling of the war, the idea that Bush and Blair “sexed up” their intelligence isn’t one of them. Sure, it’s possible that things were overstressed some, but to suggest that Saddam never sought or possessed WMDs only converts the “Bush lied” crusade into a series of lies all its own.

But if war critics are still so concerned with lies, let’s mention a few—most notably, the notions that Saddam was never a threat, that Iraqis were better off living in fear, and that Middle Easterners are somehow incapable of living free.

The overthrow of Baghdad’s ruling party has freed the Middle East from one of its most gruesome terror kings—a mass murderer who happily ignored the mantra, “No Blood For Oil,” when he reached into his pockets and pulled out funds for Hamas and Hezbollah. Saddam stood to gain from disrupting the region’s already fragile chances for peace, for there was always the chance that the United States would give up in disgust and walk away from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other such neighbors. There was no better way, after all, to complete his regional domination dream.

But whereas Saddam ruled for three decades, he collapsed in three weeks, running like the coward that most bullies are. It’s not that he didn’t have a game plan; it’s just that he knew we’d see ours through. It’s like a bad joke to suggest he never sought and/or possessed weapons of mass destruction. It flies in the face of proven history and plain commonsense. It’s not like using them would’ve helped him win, anyhow—quite the contrary, it would’ve unleashed a lethal coalition beast the likes of which even he wasn’t crazy enough to stand and fight.

With the year-long head start that we gave him, he chose self-preservation and an escape route, leaving his people—as always—to fend for themselves. The ghastly mass graves he left behind ought to rattle the senses of every civilized soul; they are our best reminder of the widespread havoc he so favored and employed.

Iraq may well have its post-war problems, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. They’re on the road to freedom now, no longer living in fear of pro rapists and plastic shredders, and that’s something containment couldn’t’ve hoped to accomplish.

You can nitpick all you want, but the truth speaks for itself. No amount of semantic finagling will change that.

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