The Underground Conservative

The last media outlet on Earth that you’d expect to expose one of the Left’s most cherished myths, did just that this morning. The Washington Post–yes, the POST, not the Times–actually published today an editorial titled “‘Bush Lied’? If Only It Were That Simple.”

You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I ran across it.

The editorial was based on the report released last week by the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence. Of course, the lamestream media jumped all over Senator Rockefeller’s–the committee’s chairman–comment that the report “proved” that Bush lied (only, of course, Rockefeller stopped short of using the word “lie” himself).

But the Washington Post’s Editorial Page Editor, Fred Hiatt, actually did something novel: he took a look at the report itself! And look at what he found:

But dive into Rockefeller’s report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

I sense a recurring theme here… “substantiated by intelligence.”

Here’s the money quote:

…(T)he phony “Bush lied” story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology from the Daily Kooks, Keith Olbermann, Al Franken, Congressional Democrats, etc. If anything, just as those who claimed in their day that the earth was round, or that the earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa, expect Mr. Hiatt to be treated like a heretic by the Left. Indeed, you only need to see some of the comments posted to this editorial to see that this is already happening.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 7:21 pm and is filed under Democrats, War on Terror, Iraq, Media, Politics, Current Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.