Oracle Commentaries 11/20/2005
Hoodwinked? Or Derelict?
Dems Charges Evidence of IncompetenceThe administration's opponents – having run into brick walls every time they tried to find some issue of substance to use against the White House – have evidently decided to revisit every charge and see if maybe, one of them might stick.
The Democrats thought that they had finally had something they could sink their teeth into with the indictment of Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby. They were bitterly disappointed that the special prosecutor was unable to indict Karl Rove or Dick Cheney for illegally revealing the name of an undercover CIA agent.
As it turned out, nobody was indicted for the crime under investigation, since it was known at the outset that Valerie Plame's CIA assignment wasn't "covert" under existing law so no crime was committed. But, since they had the grand jury all assembled and everything, they investigated anyway. After two years, they handed down an indictment against Libby for lying to investigators about his role.
Although disappointed, the Democrats tried to make the best of it, crowing that Libby's indictment "proved" what the Democrats had been saying all along – that this White House was corrupt. The indictment also rehabilitated perjury in the eyes of the Democrats as a serious crime whose commission undermined America's system of justice. (Until the Libby indictment, perjury was still OK – as long as it was about something personal – like adultery.)
Then (wouldn't you know it!) along comes Washington Post legend Bob Woodward, the reporter whose investigation brought down the Republican administration of Richard Nixon. It turns out that Valerie Plame had already been "outed" to Woodward months before Libby was alleged to have, from a different source.
Woodward also testified that he met with Libby and discussed Iraq policy as part of the research he was doing for a book on the Iraq war. Woodward said Libby didn't mention Plame. So, Libby's indictment for lying to the grand jury is about as solid as the original charge that Libby broke the law by mentioning Plame in the first place.
Seeing their windfall political capital beginning to evaporate, the Dems needed something to keep up the momentum. Having failed in their efforts to prove the Bush administration as corrupt as Clinton's was, they returned to the safety of alleging that the Bush administration cherry-picked the intelligence to bolster his case for removing Saddam. To accomplish this, the Democrats are cherry-picking intelligence and news reports, using 20-20 hindsight, to bolster their case that Bush cherry-picked intelligence to bolster his case.
At no time that I am aware of has anybody explained Bush's motive for inventing a new case for war when none was needed. Hans Blix' report to the United Nations provided all the evidence necessary to justify removing Saddam, even without any input from the Bush administration. Blix outlined a litany of deception and violations of existing U.N. resolutions against Iraq, even as he argued that UNMOVIC was beginning to get its act together.
He noted the discovery of 3,000 pages of documents in the home of an Iraqi scientist, "much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium," saying UNMOVIC believed such tactics were "deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes."
Blix's report escaped the Democratic National Committee's cherry-pickers. While using the war to slam Bush, the Democrats also needed to explain why 77 of them voted in favor of the Iraq war. They say it's because Bush had better intelligence than they did. The fact is, had any Democrat requested intelligence from the White House and was refused, it would certainly have caused a congressional catfight that would have been all over the news.
Instead, say the Dems, they simply accepted the Bush administration's assessments at face value, and that is why they voted in favor of war. It is the constitutional duty of the Congress to authorize war. That makes it the duty of every member of the authorizing body to fully investigate the reasons for war.
For the Democrats to argue that they didn't know what they were doing, but did it anyway, is an admission of utter incompetence, if not outright dereliction of duty.
The war with Saddam didn't begin on Sept. 11. It began in 1991. It continued for the entire decade, including a massive U.S. attack on Baghdad in 1998, codenamed 'Operation Desert Fox.' Regime change in Iraq was a U.S. policy articulated by Bill Clinton.
George Tenet, whom the Democrats allege cooked the intelligence for Bush, was hardly a Republican apparatchik. Tenet began his career as uber-liberal Sen. Pat Leahy's aide on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was appointed the Committee's staff director by Democrat David Boren. Tenet was appointed to his CIA post by Bill Clinton. Bush's role in Tenet's career amounted to not firing him when he took office. The 9-11 attacks took place nine months into Bush's presidency – under the noses of a director of central intelligence appointed by Democrats. The resolution authorizing war was passed at a time when the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress.
The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, chaired by former Democratic Sen. Charles Robb of Virginia and senior federal appellate court judge Laurence Silberman concluded after a lengthy investigation that CIA analysts "universally assert[ed] that in no instance did political pressure cause them to change any of their analytical judgments."
The CIA's own ombudsman, "also found no evidence, based on numerous confidential interviews with the analysts involved, that political pressure had caused any analyst to change any judgments."
For Bush to have mislead the nation into war, two things – for sure – would have to be unquestionable. The first is that Bush knew his "secret" intelligence sources (he didn't share with Congress) were 100 percent right and the CIA assessment was 100 percent wrong. Secondly, knowing the truth, Bush would have to have concealed this intelligence from his staff, the Pentagon and the Congress.
Perhaps this is a good time to point out that President Clinton couldn't conceal an affair he was having in the Oval Office bathroom. By definition, Clinton's affair began as a conspiracy of two. Within months, it was all over the front page.
To deliberately start a war based on false pretenses would be a lot more serious than a tasteless affair – it would be high treason. Anybody knowingly involved would therefore be part of a conspiracy to commit treason. And there would have to be a lot more than two conspirators. To argue that the White House could manage such a wide conspiracy – and keep a lid on it – is believable only to the politically naive.
In short, the Democrat's charges aren't even possible, let alone feasible, and those who are making those charges know it. The central charge is that the president is a liar. The more irresponsible among the loony left, including Howard Dean, have said so in so many words.
Here is the conundrum the Democrats have created for themselves: If Bush didn't lie, then they are themselves liars for making the accusation without knowing that it is true. On the other hand, if Bush did lie, then they accuse themselves of incompetence at best, and dereliction of their constitutional duty at worst.
But nobody will hold the Democrats accountable for lying. It's only wrong when Republicans do it.
Hal Lindsey