What bothered me at the time was how many smart people didn’t see it. The barely suppressed smirk. The condescending gleam in his eyes. His posture was the same as the guy saying, “Hey, I thought she wanted it,” when he knows damn well that crying and struggling to escape is not a sign of sexual excitement.
I appreciate that this article by Sidney Blumenthal that piles more unto the BushCo-lied-to-get-us-into-Iraq pile that’s too big to ignore at this point. Well, at least for the reality-based America, of course. You can take it on faith that Bush was telling the truth until the end of time, if you wish. And that Jesus is waiting to give every American who stayed the course a pony* in heaven. But the grown-up world accepted that Bush would have said or done anything to get us into Iraq, and the truth was not only no obstacle, it was considered something a joke, something to be ignored on principle as ideologically incorrect. As long as he had reasonable assurance that the media would report his claims straightforwardly, he would accused Nancy Pelosi of raping her own mother if it helped.
It’s the tone that is used to report the latest evidence of the lying that bothers me. Maybe I’m crazy, but it seems mandatory to report the latest evidence that BushCo lied off their asses with a sort of slack-jawed disbelief. There’s a sense of palpable betrayal in articles like Blumenthal’s that I simply don’t feel. The official narrative is that the lies were very good and people who bought into them were deeply betrayed and their initial assent to the war was in good faith and we should pity them.
I’m in a weird position, because I do think that a lot of good people were sucked into the war mania and genuinely were betrayed by the lying. I don’t mean the right wingers who still support the war—they would have hammered the drumbeat if Bush’s excuse was, “I feel grumpy today and want to kill some brown people,” since that’s roughly their motivation. No, I mean the liberal hawks, including certain members of Congress I still to this day think convinced themselves it was true. Hillary Clinton is a big one, and in a way, that makes her scarier to me, because she’s got that Nixon thing going where she could easily get swept into the logic of the war (we’ll leave after we achieve some kind of impossible victory, I swear) instead of just focusing on getting us out of there. I wish she were the cynical political opportunist she’s portrayed as, because if she were, I’d have more faith that she’d hear the anger of the country and pull the troops out if elected.
But why on earth did people put an ounce of trust in George W. Bush? I mean, he’s not even a good liar—look at that top video again. He might as well have a sign behind his head that says “SUCKERS”. Plus, he had a gruesome record of running some of the sleaziest campaigns of all time, based strictly around lying about your opponents. Ann Richards is a lesbian with a secret agenda to let the Homosexual Agenda take over the government of Texas.** His campaign defeated McCain in South Carolina by spreading rumors of interracial sex and under-the-table adoptions, as well as rumors that McCain was mentally ill because of his time spent in a POW camp.*** And we all know how the mainstream media was so eager to spread lies about Al Gore for the Bush campaign that the campaign’s energies were all freed up to rig the Florida election. Oh yeah, and they rigged the Florida election. And BushCo hailed from Texas, a state where the religious right has owned the Republican party outright for a couple of decades, and they have demonstrated every sign possible that they think that lying doesn’t count as long as it’s done from a place of power. Think of parents telling kids the stork brought them—as long as you can make an “ends justify the means” argument that satisfies your own weak moral compass, everything is permissible.
The only explanation that comes to mind is people figured the office of the Presidency bestows some sort of sense of duty on the office holder that is powerful enough to turn even the dirtiest politician into a servant of the American people. Maybe there was too much residual memory of the Clinton administration, which had an air of earnestness to it even when they were sticking the screws to the public, and people thought, “How different could Bush be?” For instance, I don’t get the sense the neoliberal free trade types knew damn well that their ideas would fuck over the working class in this country but did it anyway and just bullshitted their way through it. No, you get the strange sense they thought it would totally work this time, that they were doing the right thing. Maybe there was a residual glow over the White House, a sense that at the end of the day, the leaders therein would always be trying to do the right thing. It’s the only explanation I can muster for why good people thought they’d treat Bush’s outrageous claims about Iraq with good faith.
*At this point, using another metaphor is downright traitorous to the left blogosphere.
**Yes, Karl Rove literally spread rumors that Richards was not only a lesbian but that her occasional appointment of gays and lesbians to offices indicated some sort of dastardly homo takeover plot.
***My pet theory is the South Carolina primary is what finally broke John McCain, which is why he went from being a compelling figure in 2000 to the broken shell of a man who kisses the ass of the man who insulted his wife and children that we see today.
48 Responses to “Well, lies were told”
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So the question is:
How are you going to celebrate Patriot Day this year?
The only explanation that comes to mind is people figured the office of the Presidency bestows some sort of sense of duty on the office holder that is powerful enough to turn even the dirtiest politician into a servant of the American people.
Veering slightly off-topic, that thought is exactly the reason why I have a severe beef with The West Wing. I love the West Wing, it’s brilliant and compelling; but I feel at the heart there’s something very, very wrong with the view. Because Sorkin delivers this fantasy land where despite the politics and the handshaking and the deal-making; the man in the office has a basic dignity and wisdom that not only makes him eligible for awe and adoration, but deserving of it- requiring it. And he makes it very clear by the final season (the nice-Republican nice-Democrat oh who-will-we-choose season) that any man who makes it to the office deserves it and earned it, and has the right to lead, utterly and absolutely.
Bullshit.
I cried and screamed in 2000, and I cried and screamed when the war began, and I cried and screamed in 2004 because it’s so utterly fucking ridiculous that anyone can look at Bush and think anything other than I don’t trust that guy. I think there’s a lot of fellow liberals that experienced a slightly, oh, Mugatu-based sensation: “He’s got one look ! They’re all ONE LOOK ! I feel like I’m taking CRAZY PILLS !”
I understand how the spin, the overwhelming spin, might have swayed some people; but the man ? No. I’ll never understand.
Yeah, I can’t find it within myself to be shocked.
We knew he was lying from the beginning. The press knew he was lying, but chose to cover it up because Bush made them breathe funny and have visions of Vikings. Pretty much everyone knows he was lying, and has continued to lie, but the wingers and the press keep kissing his ass because, again, Vikings, breathing funny, erections, etc.
There’s a “Patriot Day”? What the hell is that?
I always hated The West Wing and never understood why people liked it. It was so sappy, with its swelling music, and not nearly cynical or snarky enough.
What really bugs me about the Bush thing is that otherwise intelligent liberal people kept just thinking he was stupid instead of evil, when the whole dumb rube act is just that — an act, designed to fool rural white people into thinking he’s one of them. Bush isn’t stupid at all: he’s not a brilliant man, but he’s not stupid. People see the little lies and don’t want to look at the big one: he learned the Josef Goebbels lesson well.
The only explanation that comes to mind is people figured the office of the Presidency bestows some sort of sense of duty on the office holder that is powerful enough to turn even the dirtiest politician into a servant of the American people.
The thing is, before GWB, that was to some extent true. No president has ever been less concerned with doing the right thing for the country. Take Nixon, for example–before GWB, arguably the most evil, corrupt man to hold the presidency. It’s inconceivable that Nixon would have sat by and watched New Orleans drown without doing something . . .
At first I bought the idea that Bush was stupid, but after 9/11, evil seemed the perfect word for him. Sociopaths seem to me to have eyes that have an abnormal darkness to them.
felagund,
Not sure if this is what Will B is talking about but in Massachusetts, the third Monday of April is celebrated as “Patriots Day.” The Boston Marathon is run that day and the Red Sox play a home game that starts at 10/11AM.
Think the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem “Paul Revere’s Ride”
“Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere…”
Oh no you don’t. No dissing The West Wing. My partner and I have just started watching it again from season one and it’s providing just enough hope in the face of this administration to keep us from suicide. Barlett 4 America!
Dude, West Wing got me through the first 4 years.
Point of order: Sorkin left the WW after season 4, thus the marked decline in writing.
Bush is a novelty in modern Presidential history. You have to go a long way back to reach another President with his level of corruption and incompetence, and even then there’s no one who takes it to the same level he has. Add to that the complicity of Big Media, who were and continue to be perfectly happy to support their friends in the Republican party and it took a long time for any trickles of reality to make their way down to the average American.
I know I didn’t think Bush could do all the damage he’s done.
I knew he was lying. I knew he was selected, not elected. I knew the war was evil and wrong. I never understood how people could be snookered into the ‘preemptive strike’ evilness. It’s just so anti-American, or at least anti the America I was taught to honor.
I guess I naively believed in the goodness of AMERICA. I never thought we would willingly toss away habeus corpus or allow our gov’t to wiretap us or simply torture people for fun and profit. I never imagined Halliburton and war profiteering going unchecked. Never imagined we’d just toss out a perfectly good city like New Orleans like a piece of trash.
Those were and still are Americans. They’d have better luck at getting aid from the government if they were in Africa.
I guess I naively trusted the press–that all journalists wanted to be Woodward and Bernstein, so that the possibility of Nixon-like shenanigans could never happen again. Sheesh, the whole country shut down over a blow job! Certainly real malfeasance would be a story.
I’ve been stunned how Condi Rice, my provost from Stanford, whom I know to be brilliant, has sold her soul to the devil for an office next to the President. Her Husbi-President, that is.
I never would have believed that anyone could institute a Soviet-style empire here. That a small group of men would be placed so high above the rest of the country.
I’m still amazed at how much damage these fuckers did in only 6 years. And how our government is so broken that it won’t fix the obvious and unConstitutional evils. And how most people don’t seem to care, even though they have been affected by it.
Felegund, I think “Patriot Day” is Orwellian newspeak for 9/11. The day we celebrate the Patriotism of the nearly 3000 who died that day while pissing on the nearly 4000 who have died in their name for a false cause.
America Uber Alles!
Bush is a novelty in modern Presidential history.
I have to disagree- I believe Bush is a direct reaping of what was sown. Reagan ? Can we talk about Reagan and his AIDS-denying, his “welfare queen” demonizing, his trickle-down fantasy economics, his CIA murders in Latin America ? His arms deals ? His meddling in Middle East militia organizations ?
Bush is the logical conclusion to the premises that have been established over the last two or three decades. It doesn’t make me hate him any less, but I don’t see him as a lone figure on a hill.
Oh, I agree that he’s cut from the same cloth as Reagan and Nixon, and to a slightly lesser degree Bush Sr.
What’s novel is both the degree to which he took these attributes. Though this arguably has less to do with him than it does a completely enabling Congress thanks to a corrupt party on the right and an incompetent one on the left.
The only explanation that comes to mind is people figured the office of the Presidency bestows some sort of sense of duty on the office holder that is powerful enough to turn even the dirtiest politician into a servant of the American people.
That’s exactly what happened. Especially after 9/11. The first thing I did when I heard that day was log into a radical liberal/progressive chat room, and pretty much exclusivly we thought that there’s no way that Bush could continue being partisan in such an environment. That it was/should be a clean slate, so to speak.
Boy were we wrong. That changed pretty fast in that community after the failures of Tora Bora. (It always was heavy on the real anti-terrorism), but still. For a lot of people they didn’t. It really was an “end of politics” era for a lot of people.
They were wrong.
For instance, I don’t get the sense the neoliberal free trade types knew damn well that their ideas would fuck over the working class in this country but did it anyway and just bullshitted their way through it. No, you get the strange sense they thought it would totally work this time, that they were doing the right thing.
Clinton believed that while neoliberal policies would cause some pain, that politicians from both parties would be interested in easing that pain in a bunch of non-ideological, rather technocratic methods. He believed in the essential goodness of the system
He was wrong.
Lesson learned? What it should be is that compromise is impossible with people driven by spitefulness and ideology.
You know what’s scary? Shit Midas gets exponentially worse because he keeps failing, keeps doubling down and keeps losing some more …
AND HE KEEPS UPPING THE ANTE USING HIS CREDIT
And his en-fucking-’nablers — his wagon-circling crony Rethugs and pathetic validation-seeking (from people who hate their guts) Dems — keep “lending” him more jack to throw on the table.
Gawrsh, can you imagine how stupid the schmucks are going feel who end up with this tab?
Oh … that’s us.
It wasn’t merely the “Shrub “Amiable Dunce You Wanna Have A Beer With” act, though that certainly helped (especially with reporters like Frank Bruni, Broder, Connally and Seelye, who act like their job is to be wined, dined, and entertained, not to inform their readers.) 9/11 helped a lot more, as John Judis’s Death Grip points out. After 9/11, Shrub wasn’t just “The Likable White Rube”, he was “The Likable White Rube Who’s Gonna Punish The Bad Guys And Save Us All From A Horrible Death”.
Now, I’m not saying that they deliberately caused 9/11 to happen; it was through neglect and indifference rather than malice. But they certainly took the ball and ran with it for all it was worth. And we’re all going to be paying the price for decades.
The more you know: Patriot Day. This year will be the fifth one.
I always got the impression that Hillary, like Bill before her, went along with the conservative agenda because she thought it was a good idea at the time, for whatever reason (IIRC this is why Bill spent his political capital on NAFTA rather than focusing, as promised, on health care issues, but I could be wrong). I don’t think she’s particularly hawkish, maybe just more concerned with realpolitik.
Incidentally, there is a whole faction of conservative voters who were also “swept up in the war mania” but who are now bitterly opposed to just about anything BushCo say or do. Maybe you ought to include them in your list of people to feel sorry for.
I have to say, I’m sort of inclined to think of Polk, who started a little thing called the Mexican-American War, as arguably just as evil. Or Hoover, the class-war-in-reverse creep with whom Bush seemingly has more in common than any of his predecessors. (I don’t know a whole lot about presidential history, but I maybe give inordinate weight to epithets like ‘fascist’ or ‘Worst President Ever.’)
All that said, I find it very difficult to be sympathetic with people who believed this crap in the first place. I understand that politicians and pundits do, in fact, justifiably consider the impact of their decisions on their careers (to say nothing of serious death threats against antiwar activists and politicians like Barbara Lee), but goddamn, the administration just never really bothered to make a case. Even before the invasion they were harrassing the weapons inspectors, ultimately forcing them to leave for their own safety, and then claiming that “Saddam kicked them out so we have to go to war.” Not to get all I-told-you-so, but it was honestly rather transparent.
Okay, I’m creeped out by this Patriot Day nonsense.
Never underestimate the need to maintain certain beliefs. For many people, accepting the extent of the lies and the evil of this administration is akin to losing one’s religion. That’s true both right and left. Disillusionment is an incredibly painful process, and most people will go through all sorts of logical contortions rather than face truth.
We see it in personal relationships, in religion and in civic life. People don’t want their assumptions shaken. When the evidence becomes too overwhelming to avoid, it’s painful.
And I’m with Caren. I never dreamed BushCo. could do this much damage. I remember in 2000 telling myself and others that it would be okay, that he’d be an ineffective, one-term president, and then we could get back on track. It’s possibly the most wrong I’ve ever been in my life.
Yeah, idiosyncratic. It’s really Orwellian. It also reminds me of the Soviet Union’s rhetoric. I’ve never understood why so many Americans go along with it–weren’t we taught to revile those practices?
“I’ve never understood why so many Americans go along with it–weren’t we taught to revile those practices?”
Apparently all along there were “Americans” (typically on the Right) who secretly admired the police-state aspect of the Soviet Union. Arrest and torture anybody, tap phones at will, keep everything secret all the time, control the press, etc.
I guess they think enough people in the west have forgotten what it was like. They feel they can get away with using the same tactics here.
It seems they’ve been proven correct…
Oh, it wasn’t the dictator aspects about Communism that the right hated, it was that they were employed (at least nominally), on behalf of egalitarian, anti-God goals. As we’ve seen again and again, it’s fine for the rich to exploit the poor, for the white to oppress the black, for the religious right to dictate to atheists, and the right wing to spy on their opponents.
Judging by the disbelief, confusion, and rejection of events of the posters here, I’d say you guys don’t have much of a feel for the American masses.
If it’s that hard to believe, if it’s that confusing, you’re not really on the ball, nor attuned to what your fellow citizens think and feel.
Newsflash, Eric; we are the American masses.
MikeEss @ 12:13pm
Your blog-fu is powerful today.
That envy of authoritarianism — and foolheaded assumption that the power will be theirs in 2008 — is mirrored by today’s mainstream D’emAristocrats.
It’s why they aren’t challenging Mad King George’s and Biggus Dickus’s power so hard as they might, as those two arch-criminals squat in the Republican Palace.
Yeah, they have all those mediacons and photo ops to tell the world, esp. their fuming base, that they must shrug off yet another “loss” — oh and give the Dems LOTS more money or they can`t even non-fight this hard — only to have it revealed later that many more Dems than necessary needlessly sided with their Rethuggernaut overlords.
It’s not just the Blue Dog Dems, either, those lying scum who swindled the netroots by promising they`d lock arms with the party on big votes that mattered, that give Preznit 28% everything he wants.
I honestly think that the conservative and Chicken WIng Dems are punking the Liberal and Moderate-Dem base from non-fight to non-fight. iI all she does is coast until election day, all HRH (Her Royal Hillary) needs to do is maintain a Liebermanesque attitude for a year and a half and the conservative vote will annoint Her Madge with so much Republican Banana oil that she`ll slide onto her throne like Elvis`s fried banana & PB sandwiches onto a plate.
Amanda
A pony = £25 in British slang. So they’re offering money as well as resurrection into eternal life for people who “stay the course”?
I find that having warned friends who are or have since 2003 become Bible Belt Christians that the U.S. would be humiliated in Iraq, in their minds the debacle has somehow become my fault. For witholding support? Being a pagan? Driving an economical car? Saying Jesus is a fairy story and will not defeat the Iraqi resistance? Dignifying the Iraqi resistance by calling it resistance rather than “the insugency because nobody surged in from anywhere? I’ve no idea.
The same friends are also disgusted with the world because we make fun of America.
Jesus and I have a rule that he doesn’t give me out as a prize.
-Pony
Also, why can’t Americans show the same amount of skepticism when it comes to a war that will cost thousands of lives that we do when we’re signing up for a cellphone plan?
I was talking to an educated, intelligent friend the night Bush announced the war in Iraq, and her response was basically “At least someone who has a clue is in charge”–she honestly believed that Colin Powell would be given the lead on the Iraq invasion (you know, him having done exactly that before). I, being much more cynical, predicted that Karl Rove would be calling more shots than Colin Powell. Damn them all for proving me right.
I think more Americans underestimated the sheer incompetence of this administration than underestimated the dishonesty and greed. Like my friend, they simply couldn’t believe that Bu$hCo would be so amazingly stupid as to get us into a war for no reason, and then carry out that war in all the ways that would make things worse instead of better. Surely those “experienced advisors” they promised us in the 2000 election will step up and say something, and surely the MBA president knows enough to listen to his senior staff!
Yeah, not so much.
Most Americans didn’t anticipate the sycophantic yes-men, the ridiculously incompetant cronies, the smug arrogance of ignoring the facts, the purge of anyone who wasn’t “loyal” (i.e., anyone who said “maybe this is a bad idea”). And very few of us anticipated that Congress would roll over and drool whenever the “unitary executive” held out a bone, anything to keep the corruption money flowing in, I guess.
The sheer hubris of this administration insisting that they make reality: I think that’s the part that most people couldn’t wrap their brains around. One blogger once described it this way: you’re sitting in your office, a guy walks in, climbs up on your desk, drops his pants and takes a shit in the middle of your desk. It’s so bizarre, so pointless, so…stupid that you just can’t believe it’s happening until it’s too late.
And when you say “Hey! What the hell? You just shit on my desk!” he just says “What? There’s no shit on your desk; I don’t know what you mean.” Or “Let’s not argue about how the shit got on your desk: let’s just accept that the shit is there and move on.”
And your brain turns into jelly and runs out your nose.
Honestly, it’s my favorite day in Boston. A couple years ago, I walked a block to see a re-enactment of Paul Revere’s ride through my neighborhood in Somerville and then headed downtown to the finish line for the Marathon.
Seriously, if folks want to see Boston shown off at its best, Patriots’ Day rocks.
hot damn! stitch that on a sampler and hang it over your mantle, cos you just defined america’s history since the first white settlers in one succinct sentence (tho sometimes of course you have to interchange the color of the people we kill)
i pretty much always love what you write, but right there you hit the nail on the head in such a way that if they were willing to listen even the most naive uninformed person could be made to understand. umm, not that theyre ever so much willing to listen.
MAJeff and others,
Patriot Day and Patriots’ Day are two different things. Patriot Day is the rather unfortunately named day of remembrance and stuff for September 11. Because it’s a good idea to pledge fealty to the government on the anniversary of one of it’s greatest failures.
Patriots’ Day is the apparently really fun celebration of the start of the American Revolution.
One of my friends and I had a bottle of beaujelais and some double-cream brie and toasted France the whole night.
MAJeff — it seems like here in the northeast, every day of the football season is Patriot’s Day.
Patriots’ Day is also celebrated in Maine, as we were part of Massachusetts until 1820.
Jeff, did ya have “freedom fries” alonf with the brie? Or would they be “freedom frites”?
OT:
[But why on earth did people put an ounce of trust in George W. Bush?]
EASY. He pimped out the credibility of Colin Powell to sell his vendetta, er, war. That Colin Powell hasn’t decked W is a measure of what kind of man he is.
Yes, Ponygirl- but only because my beleagured Giants got the wrong Manning brother and allowed Tiki Barber ( IMO, the hottest man in sports, Shealzebub) to retire.
Oh, I miss Parcells…
I think it’s hilarious how the Pats fans are all excited about Moss. Have they not followed his career? As I said in a letter in today’s Phoenix, we Vikings fans were not saddened to see him leave.
Yes it is. But so is the fact that in addition, he still hasn’t told the truth about much of anything that went on.
Powell is one of the people I most regret losing all respect for.
Louise: perhaps it’s “les frites de la liberté!” Or maybe “du liberté.” Crud, I forget. Either way, they sound delicious.
I keep telling my dad that this is the Nixon Administration of my generation (those of us born in the eighties, ‘85 for me). He somewhat agrees.
“Polk”
::snicker:: He had chronic diarrhea which is why he didn’t run for a second term!…and died. Oh wait, that’s not really funny.
Avec les catsupes des tomates!! (which is purely a silly guess; HS French was a gazillion years ago)
Peter, I hold out hope and belief that Mr Powell’s silence is more due to his professionalism as a soldier than to any sort of dishonorable intent.
I’m not gonna honor Patriot Day. Not while we have the Bush Admin blatanly aiding and abetting al-Qaida for the last five years!
Louise,
If you like Tiki Barber, then perhaps you should also check out Ronde (I’m sure you know about his twin brother on my team the Bucs). And he’s still playing, this year and I would guess for at least another 2 years.
I also agree with the comments above re: Colin Powell. I am sadly disappointed that he has not made public what went on while he was in the admin. But you are probably right, it probably has to do with his sense of duty as a soldier. Although I would hope his sense of duty would be more to his country, which is why I feel a lack of respect for him now.
Heretic, I put in my vote of the Barber brothers for Sheelzebub’s sports edition! Loved how Ronde rubbed it in to Tiki that he had the ring and Tiki didn’t…
I have enough family who were old-time military (Army and Navy) to understand why Mr Powell has decided to drive forth with his causes for American youth instead of kvetching. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to know his real thoughts and feelings- I would- but the likihood of it is extremely moot. Actually, his silence and quiet resignation said volumes.
I have a somewhat different take on the question of why we put our faith in Bush: We actually didn’t. I think that on some level the public, the congress and the media knew that the “official” case for war was BS, but didn’t care enough to stand up and tell the president “No. We will not let you do this.”
When it comes to issues we actually care about, we have no problem standing up to this president… as in the Social Security debacle.
Is it really credible that the country was “duped” into supporting the war? Surely thousands of people other than myself noticed that all of a sudden the “Iraq has WMD” meme was everywhere a few months before the war started, whereas there’d been no mention of this in the previous few years. Come on, we’re not all that stupid.
I think rather that we went along with the administration’s plan for war because of two things: A very old antipathy toward the people of the Middle East, and the knowledge that Iraq had resources that we wanted for ourselves.
Most people probably don’t know that Iraq is one of the few Middle Eastern countries (actually, one of the few countries anywhere) that has significant untapped oil reserves. But even the low-information citizen is aware that we need oil, and Iraq has lots of it. This simple, brutal assessment, I think, was well known to everyone, all the way up to the top of the government. But it was such bad taste to say this openly that only a few loony lefties dared to say it, and of course they were ignored.
The bottom line? We knew, and we did nothing. We just didn’t care enough to stop the war.
A writer that I respect once claimed that one of the hardest changes to make is from hero to villain. If you once thought someone was wonderful, it’s very, very hard to accept that you were not only wrong, but completely and horribly wrong. It’s not just a failure of the ex-hero; it’s your own failure, and a repudiation of good feelings you had.
I think Bush did become a bit of a hero in people’s eyes, and I think that’s part of what made the march to war easier. I also know that a popular meme was that the President is privy to intelligence that he can’t release, and since he’s so certain of the statements he’s making, it must be solid intel.
I know I felt that way; I mean, was Bush brave enough to risk humiliation if he was wrong? But I hadn’t counted on the idea that there might not be any humiliation if he was wrong.
This is actually one of the things that bothers me about him. I wonder… which was it? Did they feel that no one would complain about no WMDs being found because, after all, you can’t undo what’s already done? Or did they really believe in their own hype?