Senator Barbara Boxer has apparently decided to assume the role of representing the tin-foil hat, moonbat wing of the democrat party. She demonstrated her willingness to serve as Michael Moore’s designated marionette both during her enthusiastic participation in that pointless, pathetic Ohio recount stunt in Congress and most recently in her aggressive and embarrassing questioning of the dignified and gifted Condoleeza Rice. Ms. Rice handed B-squared her head, but I’m sure that mattered little to the wackjobs on the left for whom she was performing. The senator may be the Boxer, but it was a TKO for Dr. Rice.
President Bush was unwilling to allow Saddam Hussein to change the burden of proof on WMD; in other words, when it came to proving he had destroyed his VX, botulism and other extremely dangerous stuff, he wasn’t going to take his word for it. In Ms. Boxer’s world, this fact makes President Bush and Dr. Rice liars and Saddam Hussein—what? I guess the victim of their lies, along with all of us. It’s always great when liberals can find common ground with our enemies, something that seem to have an amazing knack for doing.
Senator Boxer is missing something here---hard to believe, I know—but here me out. She’s forgotten that up to the very end Saddam Hussein had the chance to avoid the war, but he made the wrong call. Maybe he was emulating one of his heroes, Adolph Hitler.
On December 11, 1944, Adolph Hitler made the mistake of his life. He declared war on the United States. The American public, enraged by treacherous sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, would have been more than content to simply deal with this obvious enemy and let the Europeans worry about Hitler, at least until after we had finished off the Japs, as they were referred to back in the 1940’s.. Hitler’s rambling speech to the Reichstag on that fateful day, in which he contrasted his humble beginnings with the wealth of Franklin Roosevelt---socialists have always loved that class envy thing—sealed his fate.
In a similar fashion, Saddam Hussein made the wrong call in 2002 and early in 2003 by his recalcitrant refusal to demonstrate that he had destroyed the weapons of mass destruction that the world knew he had possessed, and for all he would say, still possessed. In the 1990’s, Iraq admitted it had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax and tons of VX. What happened to it? Pursuant to a 17 U.N. resolutions, the burden was on Saddam Hussein to tell the world. Remember Bill Clinton’s February 1998 speech, in which he described Iraq’s "offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs." He reported that the view of U.N. inspectors "that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons."
In short, according to former President Clinton, Iraq was “a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists.”
And so it remained in March of 2003. In the face of one final opportunity to demonstrate that he had disarmed, Saddam remained defiant, probably because his buddies the French and Russians had promised him that the fix was in. The next thing he knew he was occupying a nice cozy spider hole. That’s what he gets for listening to them.
But what if Saddam had made a different decision? Clearly, after 9/11, the American people were eager to go after the Taliban in Afghanistan, but Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was another story. Yes, as we’ve seen, knowledgeable people knew that it was a threat to our national security since the 1990’s. In 1998, regime change in Iraq became official U.S. policy. Still, no one had had the cajones to pull the trigger on the decision to remove him. The reason was that pre-9/11, the public had very little interest in international entanglements and pre-emptive action against potential threats. It would have been political suicide in that environment to advocate removing Saddam Hussein, even given his obvious danger to our security.
So if Saddam Hussein had complied with U.N. Resolution 1441, even in a post 9/11 world, the Bush administration would have been hard-pressed to make a compelling case for throwing him out. Saddam relieved us of that difficult sales job with his persistent defiance.
Since the burden of proof was on Saddam Hussein, the eventual discovery of WMD or the lack thereof, has absolutely no relevance to the decision to go to war. Oh, it has some historical interest, but nothing more.
So, Senator Boxer was correct when she says that the decision to go to war was largely about WMD; that is, Saddam’s failure to prove that he had destroyed his stockpiles that everyone with a modicum of knowledge about the subject realized he had possessed.
Last fall when Art Wallis and I interviewed CBS’s Bob Schieffer, he expressed great confidence in the ability of newly-appointed investigative duo, Richard Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi, to restore the network’s credibility. He was really convinced. Me? Not so much. As I told him at the time, if this charade makes them feel better, that’s fine, but when we’re talking about a criminal conspiracy (and forging government documents was a crime last time I checked) designed to destroy a sitting president, I want a prosecutor, not some corporate, suck-up dog and pony show.
So after waiting for months, we get this report, and no surprise—they conclude that there were "considerable and fundamental deficiencies" in CBS’s journalistic performance, attributed by the Dynamic Duo to the “myopic zeal” to be first with the story. Political bias? Naaah. Don’t even think about it. There wasn’t any that they could see. Oh, yeah, Mary Mapes probably shouldn’t have called Joe Lockhart, who at the time worked for the John Kerry campaign, because that gave the appearance of political bias. “Bias is a hard thing to prove,” Lou Boccardi was quoted as saying in the Washington Post.
Ya think? Still questions remain, such as:
So now that his “unimpeachable” source has proven to be very very impeachable indeed, am I the only one who is enjoying the irony of Dan Rather and friends, who spent about 2 years self-righteously fulminating about Watergate and Richard Nixon’s shredding of the Constitution, now in the position of engaging in very similar skullduggery?
Do you suppose that Dan’s axed former colleagues feel all warm and fuzzy when they read about how sad he is over their firing?
Who exactly produced these documents, which the panel refused to say were phony, but which everyone else on the planet knows were?
Does anyone seriously think that had they been working on a negative story about John Kerry they would have had a “myopic zeal” to get it on the air?
Just how exactly do you work on something for 5 years, only to find yourself in the position of having to rush to put it out there? And I thought I had problems getting projects done!
One question that doesn’t remain open: do CBS executives get it? The answer is clearly “NO!” Linda Mason, whose official title is senior vice president for standards and special projects (will that even fit on a business card?), but who might be more aptly named Rather apologist (he had to cover the hurricane and the convention, for God’s sake!)/corporate ostrich was quoted in the same WaPo article mentioned above as saying "There was a rush because Mary felt it was a great story and she was going to get scooped on it by USA Today," Mason said. "I think she would have done that with any story. I firmly believe if they found something about Kerry and his past, they'd be rushing to get that on the air, too.” She’s right, of course. All of us who remember those scathing stories that CBS did on John Kerry’s infamous “Christmas in Cambodia” story, and that thing about his first Purple Heart, know …oh never mind.
Here’s the best part: Ms. Mason is thrilled with the report’s conclusion on political bias. She said, "That for us was the big headline: That there was no political agenda, because that would have been terrible," said Linda Mason, CBS News' senior vice president for standards and special projects, whose position was created Monday in response to the report. "We were all greatly relieved to see that the panel did extensive work and gave us a clean bill of health in terms of it not being politically motivated."
Oh I guess that settles it. This thing is like one of those reports that used to come out of the old Soviet Union. All the Politiburo members considered the case closed, and the rest of world just rolled their eyes.
"You just can't promise 'We're never going to do it again,' " Bob Schieffer said USA Today 1/11/05. "You have to demonstrate you don't tolerate this sort of thing and put procedures into place that convince people you're really serious."
I’m sorry, Bob. We’re still not.
I’ve had a lot of names for the Democrat party on the air. The Fig Leaf party (for their most recent presidential candidate’s attempt to use the fig leaf of four months’ service in Viet Nam to cover up a 20-year voting record against national security and our military, not the mention the politically-motivated demonizing of our brave troops as war criminals upon his return from his brief tour in Southeast Asia), the Potty Mouth party (remember Whoppi and pals as ‘the heart and soul of America?'), the Run and Hide party (appeasers) and the Endangered Species party (not so much for their championing of snail darters over hard-working farmers, but for their dwindling numbers), and of course, the Tin Foil hat party, for their love of conspiracy theories to explain their current impotent status. This week another nickname occurred to me, the Stunt party. Obviously, that is what the party of FDR and JFK has degenerated into, a bunch of bitter, backward-looking demagogues, less concerned about truth or justice than with regaining power so that they can control as many of their fellow citizens as possible. Come to think of it, that’s what gave me the idea to refer to them as “the lawless leading the ignorant.”
Their love of stunts has been on prominent display this week, both in that pointless charade of contesting the Ohio electoral votes and the pathetic attempt by some senators, including our own Eddie Haskell aka Richard Durbin, to connect Alberto Gonzales to the misconduct at Abu Gharaib. I never realize that the White House counsel shared internal memos intended to advise the president with low-level types working the night shift in Iraq. It’s amazing what you can learn from guys like Durbin.
Speaking of proud moments for Illinois, we've had our own stuntmaster on stage this week. I refer, of course, to our governor, Rod Blagojevich. First there was the flu shot debacle. Then he apparently wrote to the Canadian government to beg them not to put the kibosh on his stupid drug import plan. We’ve already had one pharmacist in the governor’s office, and look how that turned out? Not well.
As much fun as these stunts are to watch, my favorite is this whole “let’s be the first state to keep evil video games out of the hands of the children.”
In an attempt to import the same junk science that ambulance chasers have used so successfully, the Gov has cited “studies” that “prove” these games have a negative effect on children. That’s supposed to overcome one tiny problem, the First Amendment. Don’t you love it when liberals decide that sometimes our freedom doesn’t really matter after all?
The industry, understandably fearful of government interference in a legal business, claims that they have a voluntary rating system that they use to keep the really raunchy stuff out of the hands of kids. The governor says that they are very easy for children to obtain.
According to the editorial page of the Chicago Sun-Times, now we have “evidence” that the governor is correct and the burden is on the industry to prove that we don’t need the law to intervene and straighten them out.
Let’s examine that “evidence.” Here’s how the Sun-Times reported it on Monday, 1/3/05:
“High school sophomore Dan Shewell won’t be old enough to drive until the end of this month, but he learned last week that he could see “blood and gore,” intense violence,” “strong language,” “strong sexual content,” and even the “use of drugs” through a “Grand Theft Auto” video game without his parents knowing.”
Reading on you find out that Dan will turn 16 on 1/27 and was able to buy R rated games, meaning that the industry considers them suitable only for those 17 and older, in 11 of the 15 stores he visited.
But wait—if he’s not old enough to drive, how did he get there without his parents knowing?? Returning to the Sun-Times story “They [state Rep. Paul Froelich, R-Schaumburg and leaders of the Illinois State Crime Commission] drove Shemwell from store to store, sending him in to buy M-rated games, which they would return if he hit pay dirt.”
What exactly did that “test” prove? That if you can get some adult do-gooders with a political agenda to drive a kid all over the suburbs he can get access to items intended for adults? That if parents are so negligent that they don’t know who their kids are riding around with, those kids could get into trouble? That if kids are bankrolled by adults with political agendas they make great undercover agents? I’m sorry, Sun-Times, I’m afraid I’m not convinced by this “test” that these games are easily available to children. For a 15 year-old to get his own adult chaffeur/banker to do his bidding for an afternoon, not to mention to do it without his parents knowing, doesn’t seem that easy to me. What am I missing? Or what is the Sun-Times, and other guardians of our liberties, as they like to think of themselves, missing? I haven’t heard anyone draw such an illogical and idiotic conclusion since that babe on “Who’s Your Daddy?” decided that the guy who liked M & M’s must be her real father, since that was HER favorite candy as a child.Get John Edwards on the phone—I want to sue for journalistic malpractice.
The next time you wonder how stupid laws get on the books, remember this latest stunt.