Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Hindsight is wonderful - but this argument has it's roots in the insistance of some here to continually harp that "Bush lied", and that's (in my mind) not the case at all. I forget who keeps saying this, but ask Ty - he's the mod, and will remember.
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There are many ways to lie, one of which is to say you believe something to be true while knowing full well the evidence supporting that claim is sketchy at best. Its a great lie because its unprovable (The only person who knows whether you actually believed the alleged "intel" is you). That is what Bush did. He felt he needed to prove a point in the Arab world by installing a democracy and Bush wanted to nail Saddam from the get go. On top of that, Saddam was an easy target, and the thinking was that Iraq - being among the most technically secular and "democratic" of nations in that area - would take to democracy quickly. See: Wolfowitz Doctrine.
He couldn't tell the public this because they'd never support such a war, so Bush made a calculated bet on WMD. He also bet that the outcome would be so good that even if there was no WMD, the world would still say "Damn, that;s agreat thing you did" and forget about the pretext for the invasion.
These turned out to be a bad bets. So now everyone is calling Busb exactly what he is - a liar.
I personally don't care. Politicians lie, and in this case, to achieve his ends, Bush had no choice but to lie. Calling a politician to the carpet for lying is silly - lying is part of the business. Its a risk, and sometimes you get caught, like Bush did here.
He's a liar, and all the twisting of the facts you can muster ain't going to change that. But at the end of the day, his lie is excusable. What's not excusable is his passing the buck. He should say "I fucked up" and stop trying to blame everyone else around him, lest he find himself out on his ass, Martha style.
