A tactic that Republicans, and their corporate media supporters have perfected
is
to quickly change the argument once their clocks start getting cleaned
on another.
For instance, once Bush's lies were beginning to be exposed about WMD in
Iraq,
I saw Sean Hannity make the argument that we've found mass graves in Iraq.
Democrats didn't attack Clinton when he went to war in Eastern Europe to
stop
genocide, but they are quick to criticize Bush now. Obviously Democrats
are
hypocritical, and will find any excuse to attack a war hero.
That argument is ridiculous on its face. Clinton told us that we
needed to move on
Eastern Europe to stop genocide. That was his argument for getting
us involved.
Clinton didn't tell us that Milosevic was developing WMD, and then, once
engaged,
find genocide as a "happy" accident. But when appropriate, and reasonable,
Democrats
should not hesitate to adopt the same tactic that Hannity so proudly displays.
George W. Bush is in a box from which he cannot extricate himself.
To any aggressive
opponent, capable of thinking on his/her feet, Bush can be attacked without
recourse
from the lunatic fringe on the right (now called mainstream America in
newspeak).
The only question is, who has the courage to fire the first salvo?
A logical selection
would be John Kerry, who voted in favor of giving Bush unprecedented war
powers.
It is speculated that Democrats, such as Kerry, are reluctant to accuse
Bush of being
a liar regarding his assurance that we needed to invade Iraq because of
Saddam's cache
of WMD. They are said to fear that once they commit themselves, WMD
will be
uncovered in Iraq, marginalizing both their argument and their political
stature. Most of us
have no doubt that WMD will one day be "discovered" in Iraq, just as soon
as the place
has cooled down sufficiently enough to plant them. My argument is
that at this late date,
even if WMD are found, Bush has exposed himself to be either a bald faced
liar, or
woefully incompetent. It simply must be one or the other, and there
is no middle ground.
Yes, Bush has placed himself in a box and someone merely needs to close
the lid.
I'll explain.
The chief arguments put forward by Bush and his administration for going
to war were
that Saddam definitely had WMD, and we have proof. In fact, Rumsfeld
went so far as
to claim that we even knew exactly where they were. Further, Saddam
is such an evil
threat that there can be no doubt he is working with terrorist organizations,
looking for the
opportunity to arm them with WMD for further attacks on American soil.
After all,
Saddam did try to kill Bush's daddy. Therefore we had no choice but
to invade Iraq,
to arrest or kill Saddam, and to secure the WMD.
Suppose that we grant the administration all of that. We will stipulate
that Saddam had
unknown quantities of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
We can go even further
and say that he even possessed photon torpedoes, fasers, Green Goblin suits
with gliders,
and formulas for turning the dead into zombie combatants, all of which
could be readied
for combat on 45 minutes notice. And we certainly have no choice
but to keep those
weapons out of the hands of those who would willingly attack us and who
"hate our freedoms."
We will even stipulate that following the war, Bush flew in his personal
jet fighter, fresh
from a solo sortie over Iraq, to land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln and
proclaimed that
the major fighting was over, when he declared another victory in the war
on terror.
But wait a minute! Where is Saddam? Where are the WMD?
Have they been smuggled
out of the country? Are they still in the country? No matter
what WMD that Bush is able
to "find," there is no way that he can assure this nation that they have
all been found.
What damage can be done to the New York skyline if one single Green Goblin
uniform has
been smuggled out of Iraq. And don't forget Colin Powell's threats
that a single vile of biological
weapons can kill every person east of the Mississippi. Did Saddam
disguise himself in a burka,
with a vile or two tucked underneath, and cross the boarder into Syria?
Bush assured us that we had to go to war for our own safety sake.
But are we more safe, or less?
If we had waited to invade Iraq, if we had allowed the weapons inspectors
to take their time over
the next several years, we would have had constant knowledge of where Saddam
was, and we
could assure ourselves through our satellites and our on-the-ground intelligence
units that, while
Saddam may have WMD, he couldn't move them without our knowledge.
Now we have no idea
where they are, where Saddam is and, possibly worse, where Osama is.
This is what I'm getting at. Imagine the following exchange on "Meet the Press."
RUSSERT: "Sen. Kerry, many Democrats are accusing the President of
the United States of
lying to the American people about weapons of mass destruction in order
to rush this nation into war.
But the polls seem to indicate that the American people aren't buying that
argument because
they give the President as high as 70% approval ratings regarding his actions
thus far. My question is,
will you now join those who claim that the President is a liar, even though
you voted with the
President to give him the necessary power to disarm Saddam Hussein."
KERRY: "Not at all, Tim. George W. Bush is the President, and
as such deserves the benefit
of the doubt. I will continue to give him the benefit of doubt up
until it is proven or disproved that
Saddam had the capabilities that the President attributed to him.
I voted to give the President
unprecedented powers to root out that potential terror, and I'd do so again.
However, what have
we gained from the trust we've placed in the President. Our economy
has been decimated, the
Bill of Rights has been compromised, we are looking at a national debt
that will tear at the fabric
of our nation for several generations to come. And where are we in
our war against terrorism?
President Bush promised us that he would bring Osama into custody "dead
or alive." He promised
the same in regard to Saddam. He promised us that he would end the
threat posed by the WMD.
Barring bin Laden and Hussein being dead, or in custody, and the WMD dismantled,
the next best
thing would be to know where Saddam, Osama, and the WMD are so that we
can keep them
contained. Even with more power ever given to a President of the
United States, Saddam is
nowhere to be found, the same can be said of Osama bin Laden, and we have
no idea where a
major cache of lethal weapons can be found. I suggest that this situation
places us in far greater
danger than we were before we invaded Iraq. At least then, we knew
exactly where Saddam was,
and we could watch for the movement of potential weapons and alert weapons
inspectors.
In addition, we have well over 200,000 troops, needed for the defense of
this country and to be on
the ready for wherever the war on terror might take them, that are reduced
to attempting to bring
peace to the war torn nations of Afghanistan and Iraq."
There is no doubt that Russert would quickly change the subject.
But it would give every Democrat
an either/or approach to answer Russert whenever he overtly attempts to
prop up Bush, and it would
require the corporate media to attempt to wage a war on two fronts.
It would also wake up Americans
to one of two conclusions. Bush is either a liar, or he is completely
incompetent.