Friday, November 11, 2005
Treason!
Oh, it's been awhile since we've seen this meme:
I'm not going to delve into detail on whether Prof. Reynolds is being honest (he's not, read here). But it is good to see that he is questioning everyone else's patriotism again. I was getting worried there for a second.
UPDATE: I'm just as flummoxed by Reynolds's response (for more arm-waving go here) to Kevin Drum as Kevin is. This is a man, after all, who called opponents of the Iraq war "objectively pro-Saddam." I don't know if the thinks that that makes them unpatriotic, but you can make an educated guess.
Kevin emailed me to say, in essence, that Reynolds took the final plunge with this post, that this is the "clearest he's been on the subject" and that he usually "chooses his words a little more shrewdly," and I think he's right. Here is Reynolds, and others, walking up to the line of dissent and patriotism here and here and here.
Look, the issue is not a terribly complex one -- did Bush, perhaps himself duped by his underlings, perhaps bullying his intelligence community, perhaps both -- massage or cherry-pick intelligence to build a misleadingly overwhelming dossier on Saddam's capabilities and, more specifically to show that he was a "gathering (not imminent!) threat." Growing evidence suggests this is the case.
Democrats argue that, well, gee we didn't have the same intelligence information that the president had, therefore, we were deceived into war. Bush and his gang are arguing that Congress of course had the exact same information as the president. Obviously, someone here is lying.
I think it's correct to point out that certain people (specifically, Democratic politicians) are going overboard when they cynically argue that Bush lied us into war. But I certainly don't think it means they're unpatriotic.
LATER: The Washington Post weighs in. "But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions."
EVEN LATER: And don't miss this bizarro world take by Power Line, only to enjoy the author's valiant attempt at explaining that the president saying that Democrats had "access to the same intelligence" means exactly its opposite ("Bush didn't claim that the Dems received every piece of paper Bush saw -- he merely said they had access to the same intelligence.")
Priceless.
BUSH SLAMS HISTORICAL REVISIONISTS ON THE WAR: About time. Jeff Goldstein has more.
And read earlier posts on this subject here and here. Also here.
The White House needs to go on the offensive here in a big way -- and Bush needs to be very plain that this is all about Democratic politicans pandering to the antiwar base, that it's deeply dishonest, and that it hurts our troops abroad.
And yes, he should question their patriotism. Because they're acting unpatriotically.
I'm not going to delve into detail on whether Prof. Reynolds is being honest (he's not, read here). But it is good to see that he is questioning everyone else's patriotism again. I was getting worried there for a second.
UPDATE: I'm just as flummoxed by Reynolds's response (for more arm-waving go here) to Kevin Drum as Kevin is. This is a man, after all, who called opponents of the Iraq war "objectively pro-Saddam." I don't know if the thinks that that makes them unpatriotic, but you can make an educated guess.
Kevin emailed me to say, in essence, that Reynolds took the final plunge with this post, that this is the "clearest he's been on the subject" and that he usually "chooses his words a little more shrewdly," and I think he's right. Here is Reynolds, and others, walking up to the line of dissent and patriotism here and here and here.
Look, the issue is not a terribly complex one -- did Bush, perhaps himself duped by his underlings, perhaps bullying his intelligence community, perhaps both -- massage or cherry-pick intelligence to build a misleadingly overwhelming dossier on Saddam's capabilities and, more specifically to show that he was a "gathering (not imminent!) threat." Growing evidence suggests this is the case.
Democrats argue that, well, gee we didn't have the same intelligence information that the president had, therefore, we were deceived into war. Bush and his gang are arguing that Congress of course had the exact same information as the president. Obviously, someone here is lying.
I think it's correct to point out that certain people (specifically, Democratic politicians) are going overboard when they cynically argue that Bush lied us into war. But I certainly don't think it means they're unpatriotic.
LATER: The Washington Post weighs in. "But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions."
EVEN LATER: And don't miss this bizarro world take by Power Line, only to enjoy the author's valiant attempt at explaining that the president saying that Democrats had "access to the same intelligence" means exactly its opposite ("Bush didn't claim that the Dems received every piece of paper Bush saw -- he merely said they had access to the same intelligence.")
Priceless.
Permalink posted by Jonathan : 1:26 PM
