The American Mind

Again with the “Bush basher” rhetoric. Anti-Bush opinions aren’t valid because oh, those people are just “Bush bashers.” They have “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” Etc. etc.

You do realize that there were lots of people who said before March 2003 that invading Iraq was a bad idea, right? People like Dick Cheney in 1991?

The logic is stupefying. Everyone who opposed the war and presented solid arguments against it before 2003 were “Bush Bashers” or “Unamerican,” but now that they’ve been proven right, hindsight is 20/20 and “everyone was surprised that there were no WMDs.” That’s just not true.

“I knew Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. How did *i* know that? I was just sitting on my fuckin’ couch!” — Lewis Black

Your link to Powerline regarding the Democratic majority in Washington is odd - Powerline offers absolutely no evidence for their assertion. This is pretty standard for them - to just make it up and act like it’s a fact. My guess is that very few bureaucrats have been serving in D.C. for more than 38 years. And the administration has been run by a Republican for 26 of those 38 years. I have a hard time with Republicans who brag about their competence, and use their dominance in winning the White House to argue how popular a party they are, and then act as if they are “outsiders” when it comes to the bureaucracy.
P.S. The French, Germans, and the Russians (and most of the world) said at the time that there was not enough evidence to justify invading Iraq.

I don’t think “finding someone to tell you what you want to hear” is the same as “getting a fresh perspective.” In fact I can’t think of a single instance where the Bush administration has actively sought out a “fresh” perspective.

Read the Downing Street Memo, then see if your argument makes any sense.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html

I think Lewis Black would be the first to think it would be insane to take any of his analysis/comedy seriously as genuine advice.

I discounted the Powerline analysis.

As for the French, Germans, and Russians their actions can be explained by economic connections, a chance to grow in global importance at the United States’ expense, and meekness because of their own inability to project military power. Those nations believed Saddam was working on WMDs and had them. They opposed an all-out war.

My point stands–to a lot of people, the runup to war was pretty transparent bullshit, and those people have been proven right.

It simply shows your partisan bias to discount all the doubting that was going on before March 2003 and write it off as “Bush Bashing.”

“Sure, they were right in the end, but they were still just ‘Bush Bashers,’ so it doesn’t count.” BS.