Ted Kennedy: Punk'd!

I would have loved to have seen this; where's Political Teen with the video?

Conservatives' favorite trick -- quoting someone saying something about WMD's in Iraq, getting them to slam the statement as a lie, and then revealing it had been made by Bill Clinton or Al Gore -- was played on Ted Kennedy on this Sunday's Russert show.

Russert put up a "statement that was talked about during the war":

[RUSSERT, reading quote:] We know [Iraq is] developing unmanned vehicles, capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents ... all U.S. intelligence experts agree that they are seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop them. ...In the wake of September 11th, who among us can say with any certainty, to anybody, that those weapons might not be used against our troops or against allies in the region? Who can say that this master of miscalculation will not develop a weapon of mass destruction even greater -- a nuclear weapon. ...

RUSSERT: Are those the statements you're concerned about?

Kennedy: Well, I am concerned about it, and that's why I believe that the actions that were taken by Harry Ried in the Senate last week, when effectively he said that we are going to get to the bottom of this investigation....

We've got to get to the bottom of it. And that is what the Democrats stood for on the floor of the United States Senate last week. That was a bold stroke, one that has the overwhelming support of the American people. It is about time that they got the facts on it, they haven't got them to date, they deserve them and they'll get them.

RUSSERT: But Senator, what the Democrats stood for on the floor of the Senate in 2002, let me show you who said what I just read: John Kerry, your candidate for president. He was talking about a nuclear threat from Saddam Hussein. Hillary Clinton voted for the war. John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry. Democrats said the same things about Saddam Hussein. You yourself said quote "Saddam is dangerous, he's got dangerous weapons." It wasn't just the Bush White House.

TigerHawk reported Senator Kennedy had a "stricken look." Yeah, I'll bet.

Let's cut through all this bullshit and talk about the truth.

Democrats didn't really want to go to war with Iraq. We all know that. We knew that then, we know that now. But not because they doubted Saddam had WMD-- because they just don't like war, under almost any circumstances, and were happy enough to follow the Clinton Kick-the-Can-Down-the-Road-Into-Someone-Else's-Presidency policy for a while.

But they were cowards. They didn't have the courage of their lack of convictions, and most voted in favor of authorizing war, despite feeling it would result in doom.

Now, the war has turned out worse than most expected (except, ironically enough, the very same Democrats who didn't want to vote for it but did; they suspected the war would be far bloodier and costly than we conservatives did).

They can't just say, "We were cowards; we knew this was the wrong thing to do, but Bush bullied us, and the American people had war-fever, so we did what we usually do, that is, vote whichever way is most likely to keep us in our present office or elevate us to a higher one."

They need a different explanation. That crafty Bush -- you know, the grinning retarded Chimpresident who's always tripping because he's tied his mismatched sneaker's shoelaces together again -- duped them all.

What they want to actually say is: "We were actually right, though we didn't say so at the time, because we knew it would be politically unpopular. But we were right, in our hearts."

Sorry, lads. "Right in your hearts" only counts in liberal-land. Out here in the real world, we judge by actions and deeds and results, not intentions and withheld reservations.

Let's examine the two sides.

Conservatives actually believed the war, as well as the postwar, would be fairly short and fairly light as regards casualties. I expected 1000 or more casualties myself, but I expected most of them during the actual war. I didn't expect that we'd have 2000+ KIA and counting and that most of those would come during a seemingly endless guerilla war.

That's partly why we supported it. Naive or not (okay-- let's admit: naive), we thought Iraq would be much like the first Gulf War, and much like the War in Afghanistan. Not easy -- no war ever really is -- but certainly not Vietnam on the Euphrates.

Liberals believed the war would be bloody and costly and well-nigh unwinnable. In their hearts, they fully expected it to be another Vietnam.

And yet-- many liberal Democrats voted for it anyway. For pure politics. They expected this amount of carnage (if not more!) and yet they voted for the war anyhow, just because an election was coming and they didn't want to appear "weak."

They voted for war not because they thought it was in America's interests -- but a because they knew that vote was in their own personal interests.

And now these people have the gall to start questioning our motives and our good faith?

Are you kidding me?

posted by Ace at 01:19 AM

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