The Administration's Counter-Offensive
In an effort to dispel the now widely-held belief that the Bush administration deliberately misrepresented pre-war intelligence in making the case for war (a belief held by 57% of Americans according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll), defenders of the administration's war policy--following the White House's lead--have launched a coordinated counter-offensive. As Ryan Lizza puts it,
Even the normally formidable Christopher Hitchens can only manage to string together a bizarre collection of irrelevant observations and straw man arguments. Hitchens devotes the first paragraph of his latest column--which is intended to be a forceful rebuttal of the allegation that we were misled into war--to ridiculing some crackpot lefty protester who claimed that Bush staged the 9/11 attacks. That's the political equivalent of challenging a blind kid to a game of one-on-one. Truly pathetic. Even the folks at Powerline set up more challenging straw men. The remainder of Hitchens column is a rather long-winded and petulant collection of non-responsive ramblings. Eventually he gets around to making his point, which is . . . you know I'm not sure. I've read the column three times now, and I can't even identify a single coherent argument. It's truly the worst piece of rubbish Hitchens has ever authored (and I say that as someone who generally admires his work). One thing I'm sure of, though, Hitchens--like the rest of the administration's defenders--comes nowhere close to addressing any of the specific allegations raised by serious-minded critics.
The old White House strategy was forAs E.J. Dionne points out today, if anything, the converse of Bush's statement is true. Bush deliberately forced a rushed vote on the Iraq war resolution just before the 2002 mid-term election. His goal was to hyper-politicize the vote. As Dionne puts it:
Republicans to use any statement ever uttered
by a Democrat that expresses reservations
about war with Saddam as a cudgel to hammer
the party as hopelessly weak and uninterested
in protecting America. The new strategy is to
use any statement ever uttered by a Democrat
that expresses concern about Saddam as a
cudgel to hammer Democrats for hypocrisy.
Now, Bush insists, most Democrats got the war
right. "They spoke the truth then, and they're
speaking politics now," he said yesterday.
The bad faith of Bush's current argument isWhat's most noticeable about this counter-offensive, however, is it's refusal to address the accusations of deception in any substantive way. The charges being leveled against the Bush administration (at least by its intelligent critics) are very specific. Kevin Drum, for instance, recently laid out five very specific examples of important claims that the administration knew at the time to be highly dubious. Josh Marshall similarly provides a laundry list of specific areas where the Bush administration appears to have misled the American people. Yet no one on the Right appears willing or able to substantively address any of these specific accusations. They instead respond with generalities and point to contemporaneous quotes from Democrats that have little or nothing to do with these specific allegations of deception.
staggering. He wants to say that the "more
than a hundred Democrats in the House and
Senate" who "voted to support removing
Saddam Hussein from power" thereby gave
up their right to question his use of
intelligence forever after. But he does not
want to acknowledge that he forced the war
vote to take place under circumstances that
guaranteed the minimum amount of
reflection and debate, and that opened
anyone who dared question his policies to
charges, right before an election, that they
were soft on Hussein.
Even the normally formidable Christopher Hitchens can only manage to string together a bizarre collection of irrelevant observations and straw man arguments. Hitchens devotes the first paragraph of his latest column--which is intended to be a forceful rebuttal of the allegation that we were misled into war--to ridiculing some crackpot lefty protester who claimed that Bush staged the 9/11 attacks. That's the political equivalent of challenging a blind kid to a game of one-on-one. Truly pathetic. Even the folks at Powerline set up more challenging straw men. The remainder of Hitchens column is a rather long-winded and petulant collection of non-responsive ramblings. Eventually he gets around to making his point, which is . . . you know I'm not sure. I've read the column three times now, and I can't even identify a single coherent argument. It's truly the worst piece of rubbish Hitchens has ever authored (and I say that as someone who generally admires his work). One thing I'm sure of, though, Hitchens--like the rest of the administration's defenders--comes nowhere close to addressing any of the specific allegations raised by serious-minded critics.
posted by A.L. at 11:52 PM
3 Comments:
Hitch's point is this - the Bush administration's premise to go to war was not totally novel - the fact that Congress did pass the Iraqi libertation act in 98 cannot be ignored - Facts such as Bill Clinton's and Sandy Berger's warnings about Saddam's WMD program before Bush even came to power cannot be brushed aside. There was a consensus in senior circles of the Clinton and Bush administration that the dictator was dangerous - plain and simple. You could say that both the sides had their own ways to solve the problem, but the key thing here is that both these administrations saw Saddam as a problem.
Did the Bush Admn EXXAGERATE the case for war and the urgency to go for it? Did it screw up post war planning? The facts on the ground today prove that - how ever that does not disprove one of the core premises of this war i.e Saddam was dangerous/untrustworthy to be given the benefit of the doubt when it came to the WMD program. And for Democratic politicians to now claim that they were "misled" into the war is highly dubious. What does that even mean? Can they seriously say that if not for Bush they would have never believed that Saddam had/wanted to have a WMD program?Every senior Democratic politician was of the belief that Saddam could prove to be dangerous with his weapons program when Bush made his case for the war.And i am pretty sure that they thought this way because the Clinton administration itself had been given to such thoughts before the present administration.
I used to be a war critic myself but the more i see the Dems trying to put the entire blame on Bush, the more disgusted i feel - Clinton today says that the Iraq war was a mistake - i assume that he is talking more about the post war planning -but i dont hear him saying that the Dems were "mislead" into starting the war itself! You cannot have it both ways!!
Just when I thought that the Bush Govt has easily been the most irresponsible administration ever during wartime, the Dems seem to be showing that they are not way behind being an irresponsible Opposition during wartime! And they could do SO MUCH BETTER - Did some one read Fred Hiatt on WaPo a few days back? He raises the same question.
Nagarajan,
Your point is well-taken (and frankly, a lot clearer than anything Hitchens said). My concern is not so much that the Bush administration misled Democratic politicians. I think they should have been smart enough to see what was going on, or at least to have been skeptical. In fact, I think many did see through much of the administration's case for war, but went along with it anyway for cowardly political reasons. But I do think that the Bush administration misled the public to create popular support for the war. I think that's a much serious transgression.
And don't get me wrong. I do think there was a bipartisan consensus that Saddam was a threat. He was. But the fact that he was a threat did not, in and of itself, make the case for invasion. Kim Jung Il is a threat as well, but no one thinks we should invade North Korea. The collateral consequences are too problematic. I felt at the time, and I feel now, that no one in the Bush administration gave any real thought to the potential downside of invasion (i.e. dealing with the post-war power vaccuum, fanning the flames of jihadism, etc.). Yes, they were acting to confront a real, genuine threat. But they did so hastily and recklessly, without the necessary planning or reflection. And rather that make their case in a responsible way, they crammed it down everyone's throats by hyping the threat beyond the facts and creating a false sense of urgency. That's what they should be faulted for.
I think you are dead on when you say that the Dems were cowardly not to come out against the Bush Govt when the case for war was made - who wants to look "soft" post 9/11 on defense? A reputation that has been earned over the course of the last few decades would have only been re-inforced if ANY questions were asked at that time. And that is what i feel has put them in a bind - saying that Bush lied NOW two years after supporting him then does not seem to be a good strategy politically ,let alone responsible or otherwise.
Even when you are in the Opposition, you can always show the way - that is what is missing in the party largely nowadays - A simple example of this would be NOT to ask for a time table to pull out troops. The harsh truth is this - no body can predict exactly when we can come back, because it is so largely dependent on the Iraqi armed forces themselves - every body knows this. Is it fair for the troops to be there as long as required? No - atleast thats what i feel. Is it necessary? Unfortunately, yes.
The biggest thing that the Dems can do now is to say - Hey, it looks like the President screwed up BIG TIME. We want the troops back home as soon as possible - it may not be as early as we would all like - how ever, we are going to support them through and through. We dont want to go any deeper about how this war started or whether it should have even started, because it is moot now. It is for the people to judge that. The best that we can do now is to support the troops as much as we can. Do they have the best equipment possible? What kind of support do disabled veterans get? How can we possibly increase enlistment? We are not comfortable with the way we went to war, but at the end of the day it is the troops who are doing this dog fight and we will try to back them as much as we can - No, that does not mean looking the other way when Abu Ghraib happens,but we will not sit mutely when Rummy says, "you have to go with the army that you have not the army you want" - the USA is not eactly Timbuctoo - IT CAN HAVE WHAT EVER ARMY IT WANTS!!! How could they not seize the initiative here ? It puzzles me.
I think that the Govt was very hasty in going to war -there is no doubt about it. But it is doing even worse post war planning et al. You can complain about it all you want hoping that it is strategically good- Or, you can show leadership that is so obviously lacking with Bush. People will not forget how badly the Govt messed up - but they will be thankful to the opposition if it could show the way by not stressing too much on the shortcomings of the commander in chief (even the most partisan Republican can see it) but by coming out openly with plans to help the troops- how ever big or small they may be.
In short, we are in a position we should have not got ourselves into - But what can we do to help this country out of it? Can we atleast start thinking along those lines?
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