Ken Starr, call your office (Bush lies should mean his exit in 04)

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=7&u=/uclicktext/20040214/cm_ucru/kenstarrcallyouroffice

KEN STARR, CALL YOUR OFFICE
Fri Feb 13, 7:49 PM ET
By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE/TED RALL

NEW YORK--The fight over Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction is turning surreal. As one post facto justification for the war after another is erased by incontrovertible reality--the WMD threat by the absence thereof, the Al Qaeda threat by simple logic, the liberation argument by the bombs Iraqis are setting off at every American they can--the Bushies are circulating a list of quotes by such leading Democrats as John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and President Bill Clinton slamming Saddam. Never mind that we impeached Clinton for lying under oath, argue the Republicans. Bush "had the same intelligence President Clinton had," adds Laura Bush. Now there's a GOP talking point with legs.


In other words, George W. Bush is trying to bolster his sinking credibility by equating his personal integrity to that of Bill Clinton. I won't argue the point, but Karl Rove is losing his touch.

<snip>
There's nothing new about presidents lying to con us into war. After North Vietnam allegedly fired torpedoes at a U.S. destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin, Lyndon Johnson convinced Congress to escalate U.S. involvement there. But secret White House tapes recorded LBJ's admission that the attack probably never happened. "When we got through with all the firing," LBJ told secretary of defense Robert McNamara, "we concluded maybe they hadn't fired at all." Though Ronald Reagan claimed that the government of Grenada had to be overthrown in order to save 600 American medical students from Marxist thugs, students "rescued" by U.S. marines quizzically told reporters that they'd never felt menaced. Had they wanted to leave, they said, they could have gone to the airport and boarded a commercial flight. <snip>


Contrary to conventional wisdom, you don't need reliable spies to wage preemptive war. You need soothsayers to divine a nation's technological prowess as well as its leaders' cultural and political motivations. Then, if you want the American people to unite behind you and your war, you must present credible evidence that your target will attack us if we don't hit them first. <snip>

"I expected to find the weapons," Bush told Tim Russert last week. I believe him. They bet everything on that conviction. But Bush knew that he didn't have hard evidence. So he and his cabinet vamped it, figuring that the postwar discovery of vast stockpiles would silence critics. Now that there are no WMDs, the preemptive doctrine is toast. So is presidential credibility. Since Bush has lost his trillion-dollar gamble, it's time for him to pay off the casino and vacate the high rollers' suite.

[sadiesworld]

1. Yes, what was once the bold, visionary (dare we say divinely inspired)

Bush plan to invade Iraq, is now something "everyone agreed on".

[papau]

2. "Clinton didn't say I couldn't invade" is the new Bush mantra

I love it!

:-)