He said,
"Several days ago, I commented briefly on some recent statements
that have been made by some members of Congress about Iraq. Within
hours of my speech, a report went out on the wires under the headline,
quote, Cheney Says War Critics Dishonest, Reprehensible, end quote."
The vice president went to on to explain and emphasize that, "I
do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any
aspect thereof. Disagreement, argument and debate are the essence
of democracy, and none of us should want it any other way. . .
. What is not legitimate and what I will again say is dishonest
and reprehensible is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that
the president of the United States or any member of his administration
purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence. .
. . The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight.
But any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped
or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false. Sen.
John McCain put it best: 'It is a lie to say that the president
lied to the American people.' "
The unanimous
conclusion of 15 separate intelligence agencies in their National
Intelligence Estimate, submitted to the president in October 2002,
was that Saddam Hussein's WMD constituted a real and present danger.
Subsequent bipartisan investigations by the Senate Intelligence
Committee in 2004 and the Silberman-Robb Commission in 2005 reported
that the president neither distorted intelligence reports nor
did he pressure intelligence agencies to reach tendentious conclusions.
In the afternoon
following Cheney's Nov. 21 speech, here's how it was reported
by Jack Cafferty on CNN's The Situation Room: ". . . if you
dare question the use of prewar intelligence, according to that
speech this morning, you are dishonest and reprehensible."
Outrageous!
This is liberal media bias on stilts. Cafferty blatantly duplicated
the very same distortion of an earlier Cheney speech that the
vice president had specifically made a point of correcting. Cheney's
distinction between what he believed was legitimate and illegitimate
criticism couldn't have been clearer. Cafferty is either dense
or shameless.
So, what's
new? Bush-haters have a repertoire of shifty theatrical tactics.
One is to feign outrage at make-believe attacks on their "patriotism."
When the administration defends itself and challenges the claims
of certain critics, the critics will falsely claim that their
patriotism has been impugned. By this device, critics hope to
discredit and discourage criticism of their criticism. No one
in the White House questioned Rep. John Murtha's patriotism, just
his judgment.
Another canard
is the misuse of the "L-word." "Bush lied"
has become a mantra and an outright obsession with Bush-haters,
repeated endlessly in the titles of a spate of books by the likes
of Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them),
Joe Conason, Robert Scheer and other lefties. I believe this to
be a backlash rooted in their resentment and anger over the downfall
of the Clinton presidency. So they labor to turn the tables and
take out their visceral revenge on Bush by branding him a "liar."
In Clinton's
case, however, he was caught in blatant lies while under oath
in a deposition, for which he suffered official discipline in
a court of law. While his sexual exploits may have been of far
less import than the current debate over the nation's foreign
policy, the inescapable point is that it's flatly intolerable
for the president of the United States - the attorney general's
boss - to lie under oath about anything.
All politicians,
including presidents, spin and embellish but a lie is defined
as a willful falsehood. Simply being mistaken is not a lie. Clinton
lied. At worst, Bush was misinformed. We now know the intelligence
about Saddam's WMD was faulty, but a bevy of liberals from Bill
Clinton to Ted Kennedy to Hillary Clinton also believed it and
said so publicly. By definition, no one who believed the intelligence
- not Bush or Kennedy or the Clintons - was guilty of lying.
Mike Rosen's radio show airs
daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA.
