Here's Josh Marshall on the evidence (circumstantial but damning) that the White House knew, when G.W.B. mentioned the Nigerian Uranium connection in his State of the Union Address, that those reports were phony. And over here on his weblog, Marshall makes the case that the thinking in or around the Oval Office went roughly like this: We aren't sure Saddam has these weapons but he might, so to get America behind the war effort, we'd better fib and say we're absolutely sure that danger is imminent.
Something like that.
The thing that bothers me about all this…well, two things. One of course is that so many people who flew into High Outrage over Bill Clinton's comparatively-minor truth-warpings are ready to spin or ignore any damn thing the Bush Administration says, no matter how poorly it stacks up against the evidence. Perhaps this shouldn't surprise me by now. Maybe we have actually reached the stage in this country where people — at least those actively involved in politics — are emotionally incapable of admitting that "their guy" lied. Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter; Lying is only something the other team does. (The only exception to this seems to be when it looks like "your guy" is going down anyway. Then it's okay to pile on and try to claim a fragment of Moral High-Ground. You certainly want to call him a liar before he actually admits it.)
The other thing that bothers me is another one of those "pox on both parties" issues. There's some odd variation on the principle of schadenfreude that has to do with wishing ill on your enemies even if it brings harm on the nation and its people. It would be like a Republican (a few years ago) hoping that Clinton's economic plan would bring on massive unemployment because that would help the G.O.P. reclaim the White House. Or it would be like a Democrat (today) hoping that the economic picture will get worse because it will harm Bush's chances in '04. These are pretty sick things to be wishing.
The other day, cruising The Corner (a conservative weblog — and one often worth reading), I came across a post by its ringleader, Jonah Goldberg, on reports that new documents on Iraq's weapons plans have been seized…
Man, oh, Maneshevitz, it would be nice if this leads to huge stockpiles of WMD. But we've been burned on promising stories before, so we'll see.
Beyond the fact that a guy named Goldberg ought to be able to spell "Manischewitz," there's this: Wouldn't the best thing for America and the world be if we didn't find huge stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction but rather, deduced that all the non-war actions (inspections, sanctions, etc.) had worked to eliminate them? I know some folks think those tactics are wimpy and unreliable but isn't the cause of peace and security a little better off if it turns out those methods prove to be more effective than previously thought?
Yes, there's a certain embarrassment for Bush and Company if the weapons aren't there…but most of that embarrassment has already occurred and won't be undone. Clearly, our intelligence — the specifics Powell cited before the U.N., for instance — is already discredited. We clearly didn't know what Hussein had or where he had it…and even if it turns out he had something, few are going to believe that we didn't invade based on faulty evidence. That's assuming we even find something and that anyone besides die-hard Republicans doesn't believe we didn't put it there.
If we do find W.M.D., those folks will celebrate — but only because it will help George W. Bush, not the world. The world is better off if the end of this story is that the sanctions and the inspections and maybe even the 1998 bombing of Iraq are why our guys ain't finding all that stuff that Hans Blix was ridiculed for not being able to find.
