Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

The Dem's politics of fraud

David Horowitz:

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These real world considerations are why the campaign waged by the Democratic Party and a Democratic press against the Bush war policy is based not on any analysis of the war itself, but on maliciously concocted claims about the prewar justification for military action. For purely political agendas, the Democrats hope to attempt to convict the Administration of “misleading the American public” and wasting American lives through deception and fraud, and thus to defeat the President at the polls in November.

This is the campaign of the Big Lie and its success depends on the very fact that it is a big lie. Its aim is to shift the very terms of the argument to a terrain favorable to the critics who have been refuted by the events themselves – a terrain entirely irrelevant to the reality of the war itself. To respond to this campaign would require of its targets candor and courage, because the only way to confront it is to impugn the integrity, honesty and goodwill of those who so maliciously prosecute it. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration does not seem up to this task of calling its critics to account. This is why it is on the defensive and in serious trouble in its political campaign.

How does this Big Lie operate? A look at today’s top headline in the New York Times (whose example is faithfully followed in most of the nation’s press) illustrates it well: “Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie.” That is the news of the day – similar in its negative spin for the Bush campaign to the news of the last 30 or 60 days as well. The Times headline refers to the report of the 9/11 commission that Mohammed Atta did not meet with Iraqi government officials in Prague prior to 9/11 and that it could find no evidence that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 plot. The Times “News Analysis” accompanying the account draws this conclusion: “In questioning the extent of any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the commission weakened the already spotty scorecard on Mr. Bush’s justifications for sending the military to topple Saddam Hussein.”

Actually this Times reportage is several lies in one. First, the panel did not conclude that there was no al Qaeda-Iraq tie. It concluded that it could not find an al Qaeda-Iraq tie in respect to the attacks of 9/11. This is entirely different from the claim that there were no links between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime. There are in fact extensive links, which Stephen Hayes and others have detailed.

But that is just the beginning. The bigger lie in this particular claim is that Mohammed Atta’s visit to Prague was one of “Mr. Bush’s justifications for sending the military to topple Saddam Hussein.” Mr. Bush made no such claim, certainly not in connection with a justification for the war in Iraq. (The Times actually prints Bush’s references to Iraq and al-Qaeda links on February 8, 2003, none of which mentions 9/11.) The justification for sending the military to topple Saddam Hussein was the violation of UN Resolution 1441 – and 16 UN resolutions before that. Resolution 1441 authorized the use of force as of December 7, 2002, the deadline that had been set by the Security Council on November 8, 2002.

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The critics of the Bush Administration have used their lies about the rationale for the war to call the President a liar, a fraud, a deceiver and a traitor. These are terms that apply to the critics themselves. But the Bush Administration has not had the gumption to use them (or their political equivalents). The Bush Administration had better rethink this reluctance if it intends on retaining power in November. American voters are not going to be able to sort out these lies for themselves in the absence of a strong case by the Bush team.

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In either case – and in both cases – what we are confronting in this spectacle is an unprecedented event in American political life. In the midst of a good war and a noble enterprise, a major American party is engaged in an effort to stab its own country in the back for short term political gain, and is willing to do to so by the most underhanded and unscrupulous means.