BIGGEST MISTAKE...

[Cliffenstein]

My Biggest Mistake in the White House
Failing to refute charges that Bush lied us into war has hurt our country.

Karl Rove / The Wall Street Journal / July 15, 2010

Seven years ago today, in a speech on the Iraq war, Sen. Ted Kennedy fired the first shot in an all-out assault on President George W. Bush's integrity. "All the evidence points to the conclusion," Kennedy said, that the Bush administration "put a spin on the intelligence and a spin on the truth." Later that day Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle told reporters Mr. Bush needed "to be forthcoming" about the absence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Thus began a shameful episode in our political life whose poisonous fruits are still with us.

The next morning, Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and John Edwards joined in. Sen. Kerry said, "It is time for a president who will face the truth and tell the truth." Mr. Edwards chimed in, "The administration has a problem with the truth."

The battering would continue, and it was a monument to hypocrisy and cynicism. All these Democrats had said, like Mr. Bush did, that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD. Of the 110 House and Senate Democrats who voted in October 2002 to authorize the use of force against his regime, 67 said in congressional debate that Saddam had these weapons. This didn't keep Democrats from later alleging something they knew was false—that the president had lied America into war.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham organized a bipartisan letter in December 2001 warning Mr. Bush that Saddam's "biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs...may be back to pre-Gulf War status," and enhanced by "longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Yet two years later, he called for Mr. Bush's impeachment for having said Saddam had WMD.

On July 9, 2004, Mr. Graham's fellow Democrat on Senate Intelligence, Jay Rockefeller, charged that the Bush administration "at all levels...used bad information to bolster the case for war." But in his remarks on Oct. 10, 2002, supporting the war resolution, he said that "Saddam's existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose real threats to America."

Even Kennedy, who opposed the war resolution, nonetheless said the month before the vote that Saddam's "pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated." But he warned if force were employed, the Iraqi dictator "may decide he has nothing to lose by using weapons of mass destruction himself or by sharing them with terrorists."

Then there was Al Gore, who charged on June 24, 2004, that Mr. Bush spent "prodigious amounts of energy convincing people of lies" and accused him of treason, bellowing that Mr. Bush "betrayed his country." Yet just a month before the war resolution debate, the former vice president said, "We know that [Saddam] has stored away secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Top Democrats led their party in making the "Bush lied, people died" charge because they wanted to defeat him in 2004. That didn't happen. Several bipartisan commissions would later catalogue the serious errors in the intelligence on which Mr. Bush and Democrats relied. But these commissions, particularly the Silberman-Robb report of March 31, 2005, found that the "Bush lied" charge was false. Still, the attacks hurt: When they began, less than a third of Americans believed the charge. Two years later, polls showed that just over half did.

The damage extended beyond Mr. Bush's presidency. The attacks on Mr. Bush poisoned America's political discourse. Saying the commander-in-chief intentionally lied America into war is about the most serious accusation that can be leveled at a president. The charge was false—and it opened the way for politicians in both parties to move the debate from differences over issues into ad hominem attacks.

At the time, we in the Bush White House discussed responding but decided not to relitigate the past. That was wrong and my mistake: I should have insisted to the president that this was a dagger aimed at his administration's heart. What Democrats started seven years ago left us less united as a nation to confront foreign challenges and overcome America's enemies.

We know President Bush did not intentionally mislead the nation. Saddam Hussein was deposed and eventually hanged for his crimes. Iraq is a democracy and an ally instead of an enemy of America. Al Qaeda suffered tremendous blows in the "land between the two rivers." But Democrats lost more than the election in 2004. In telling lie after lie, week after week, many lost their honor and blackened their reputations.

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Mr. Rove is the former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush.

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

Although I agree with his assessment of the Dem's hypocrisy in voting for the war initially, his Tu quoque defense of the administration's actions is pure fallacy and his obligatory fear mongering "your criticisms have divided our nation's ability to fight terror" is pathetic.

It doesn't get around the distillation of two possible facets for Bush and his administration's hawk position.

Fact: There were no WMD's in Iraq.

So that means either

1) Bush and his administration knew the intelligence was bogus and lied about its bearing on justification to invade

or

2) Bush and his administration were incompetent and relied on under-esearched and unsubstantiated intelligence reports in order to justify invasion.

Either way Bush and his administration are at fault. And considering Paul Wolfowitz, Rove, Colin Powell, and Rumsfield are intelligent and competent men, that would mean that they lied or were complicit in the deception.

And LOL @ "my biggest mistake"

Their non-response was politically intentional. Rove and the administration didn't respond to the criticism because they didn't have to and would have only hurt them if they did and Rove knows this. And he knew that the Legislative were too flaccid to compel them to.

[tin00can]

I'm more than willing to believe what Karl Rove says about Karl Rove. What possible ulterior motive could he have?

Did you even give this any thought, or were you all "woo, suck it democrats!" after the headline? It's like the standard job interview line where my greatest fault as a worker is that darn it, sometimes I just work too hard. Anybody within half a mile with a working bullshit detector is gonna be covered in bits and pieces after said detector explodes.

Rove rivals any democrat you can think of when it comes to duplicity and general sliminess.

[Cliffenstein]

Did you even give this any thought, or were you all "woo, suck it democrats!" after the headline?

Rank and file conversative Republicans such as myself have long wondered why the Bush administration allowed Democrats and the liberal media to create and sustain the false narrative that the President lied to take us to war.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

Rank and file conversative Republicans such as myself have long wondered why the Bush administration allowed Democrats and the liberal media to create and sustain the false narrative that the President lied to take us to war.

Perhaps it seemed better at the time to allow themselves to appear to be masterminds of an insidious, diabolical invasion plot rather than a bunch of clueless dupes, which hasn't exactly worked to the aforementioned Democrats advantage.

[SeminiferousButtNoid]

Did you even give this any thought, or were you all "woo, suck it democrats!" after the headline?

Rank and file conversative Republicans such as myself have long wondered why the Bush administration allowed Democrats and the liberal media to create and sustain the false narrative that the President lied to take us to war.

Buddy, the media didn't create anything in this case. Whether they are predominately left wing is immaterial. Bush and his administration bullied these wars through without the proper justification. They relied on Democrat (and Republican) politicians who wanted to keep their jobs, and the silent majority who many times blindingly support our war efforts, especially in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. They relied on those manipulations to get an initial rubber stamp to invade and occupy a country that was no direct threat to us and caused no preemptive attack to us or our allies

Can you not see how it was manufactured?

[LuciferSanchez]

At the time prior to the war in Iraq, I was watching FOX News alot. At the time it was a matter of preference and I recall Scott Ritter was on constantly and repeatedly was saying Iraq has no WMDs, and he may who have been the only one saying that, while there were many others on their programs were diligent in saying Iraq has WMDs . Once it was discovered that Iraq did not have WMDs, only one commentator, Col. David Hackworth, say Ritter was right in the assessment.

Afterwards, I never saw Ritter appear on Fox again.

I will always be in the belief that one of the reasons, perhaps the main reason, Bush was selected as the Republican nominee in 2000 was he was more likely to be convinced to go to war in Iraq than any of his opponents. Something many Republicans were trying to do since 97, 98 in a letter written to President Clinton.

[tin00can]

Did you even give this any thought, or were you all "woo, suck it democrats!" after the headline?

Rank and file conversative Republicans such as myself have long wondered why the Bush administration allowed Democrats and the liberal media to create and sustain the false narrative that the President lied to take us to war.

So the answer is "no" then. Got it.

Way to stay on topic! After that gem you can't knock any democrats about deflecting.

[Cliffenstein]

So the answer is "no" then. Got it.

Way to stay on topic! After that gem you can't knock any democrats about deflecting.

Ummm...dude...I answered your question directly!

[invaziondrummer]

Karl Rove is a criminal and a smug, piece of shit. If there were any justice, his slow execution would be on Pay-Per View as I type this.

[tin00can]

http://tin00can.wordpress.com/2010/07/1 ... karl-rove/

[LitaJett]

Rank and file conversative Republicans such as myself have long wondered why the Bush administration allowed Democrats and the liberal media to create and sustain the false narrative that the President lied to take us to war.

Because he did lie, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYI7JXGqd0o