The left remembers to forget

What a week.

Democrats are coming out of the woodwork, backtracking on the Iraq war. Now they never would have authorized the use of force, had they been privy to the same intelligence Bush administration officials had in the run-up to the invasion. Somehow, these outspoken Dems allege, administration insiders with access to the complete picture twisted the pre-war intelligence they presented to Congress and the world to support their pro-war agenda.

This latest big noise comes from the left, despite not a shred of evidence emerging to support it.

Indeed, in his excellent analysis, “Who Is Lying About Iraq?,” Norman Podhoretz notes:

“…[I]n its report of 2004, the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, while criticizing the CIA for relying on what in hindsight looked like weak or faulty intelligence, stated that it ‘did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence, or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities.’

The March 2005 report of the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission, which investigated intelligence failures on Iraq, reached the same conclusion, finding ‘no evidence of political pressure to influence the intelligence community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments.’”

Yet with the left, it’s all nod-nod wink-wink we know better forget the facts my mind is made up.

On Tuesday, in an editorial entitled “Decoding Mr. Bush’s Denials,” The New York Times combed its collectively selective memory and wrote the following:

“Mr. Bush says everyone had the same intelligence he had - Mr. Clinton and his advisers, foreign governments, and members of Congress - and that all of them reached the same conclusions. The only part that is true is that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.”

If it is true that the Bush administration was working with old intelligence, then we have the Clinton administration to thank for repeatedly authorizing reductions in intelligence spending during its 8 years at the White House.

The editorial goes on:

“It's hard to imagine what Mr. Bush means when he says everyone reached the same conclusion. There was indeed a widespread belief that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. But Mr. Clinton looked at the data and concluded that inspections and pressure were working - a view we now know was accurate.”

If Mr. Clinton was of this view, his wife sure didn’t agree when she said in October 2002 (as quoted by Podhoretz): “In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical- and biological-weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.”

How can the Times assert that inspections and pressure were working when we now know that Saddam Hussein had used the United Nations’ scandalous Oil-for-Food program to buy influence with UN members? Had the US not invaded Iraq, had corruption in the Oil-for-Food program not been exposed and had Saddam succeeded in having UN sanctions against Iraq lifted, can The New York Times state with complete confidence that he would not be seeking WMD today?

Go ahead, make my day.

We're on our way! Sort of...

I don't know where we're goin', but we're on our way!
--Stymie, of The Little Rascals

It's springtime in November in Lower Manhattan. The evening air is cleaner and crisper here than uptown. Not surprising, really. Manhattan island narrows down at the tip, and you can walk east side to west side, East River to Hudson, in about 15 minutes at a leisurely clip. The breezes just kind of pass through, rustling the trees in the old Trinity cemetery, mussing the hair of tourists in Battery Park, kicking up dust devils in the pit at Ground Zero.

Construction has finally begun in earnest at the World Trade Center site. About time, too. Downtown residents and workers, not to mention the rest of the city, have needed something to look forward to for a while now.

Something's going up, though we're still not sure what it is yet. Larry Silverstein, who has a 100-year lease on the site, and Governor Pataki think it's going to be commercial space, along with the memorial and a park. Mayor Bloomberg, fresh off an easy reelection, wants to nix the office space and put up housing. I think the edge goes to Mayor Mike. But, ultimately, all I can say is, keep pouring the cement, guys. Work out your squabbles, and let's get this done.

Friday I had an interesting little encounter with The New York Times. On their website, I was curious to read what the paper of record had to say about President Bush’s Veterans Day speech.

In the story, "Bush Forcefully Attacks Critics of His Strategy in Iraq," reporter Maria Newman wrote the following:

The president has been consistent in saying American troops would remain in Iraq until the job is done, since he said otherwise during the campaign, when Matt Lauer of NBC asked Mr. Bush in a televised interview in August 2004 about the war.

"I don't think you can win it," Mr. Bush said, a remark Democrats immediately seized on as defeatist.

Here is what, in fact, Matt Lauer asked, and how President Bush responded, per the transcript of Lauer’s Aug. 30, 2004 interview (posted here):

Lauer: You said to me a second ago, one of the things you'll lay out in your vision for the next four years is how to go about winning the war on terror. That phrase strikes me a little bit. Do you really think we can win this war on terror in the next four years?

President Bush: I have never said we can win it in four years.

Lauer: So I’m just saying can we win it? Do you see that?

President Bush: I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world — let's put it that way.

As is plainly evident, Lauer's question was not about the war in Iraq, but about the broader war on terror. And in his response, President Bush's position was, essentially, you're never going to capture or defeat every nut, Islamic or otherwise, who engages in terrorist activity. But, you can try to create a climate where terrorism is condemned even by countries that are currently inconsistent in their words and deeds.

So it appears Newman twisted the facts in 2 paragraphs to serve her obviously biased agenda.

I wrote the editors at the Times about this, and ended with, “Clearly, a retraction is in order, should your newspaper have any remaining pretense towards truth and objectivity in reporting.”

And, to my surprise, within an hour, this is how those paragraphs, and the ideas behind them, were reexpressed in Newman's story:

Even as many Americans are calling for withdrawal of American troops, Mr. Bush said the American presence would not leave until the war in Iraq is "won," a position he has stuck to even as his critics and much of the public are calling him stubborn.

In addition, at the end of the story, the following correction appeared:

Correction
An earlier version of this article today about President Bush's speech on the war in Iraq misstated the subject of a comment he made to Matt Lauer of NBC in August 2004, "I don't think you can win it.'' He referred to the war on terror, not the war in Iraq.

Thank you very much, New York Times.