Who Is Lying?

I am a huge fan of David Limbaugh’s columns, but his latest is my all time favorite. I really, really wish I had written it. Please, if you only read one column this weekend, read this one. (If you read more than one, please read my Plame piece next.)

If you are a supporter of the mission in Iraq, and interested in the truth, this one will have you saying “Amen.”

…Democrats are the ones politicizing the war and who view it exclusively through a partisan prism. When they stop hyperventilating, they might consider that it is the commander in chief’s duty to rally popular support for the troops and their mission. Of course, the president’s task wouldn’t be nearly so urgent if Democrats hadn’t been undermining the war effort in Iraq almost since it began with a steady stream of disinformation, focusing on the false charge that he lied us into war.

They explain their sudden affinity for the truth — in contrast to their cynically dismissive attitude toward it during the Clinton years — as a matter of the singular importance of the war. While lying per se isn’t particularly wrong under their relativist standards — and lying about adulterous relations is even virtuous to protect one’s family — lying about war, at least by a Republican president, is so evil it pretty much drives them to the obnoxious Christian state of moral absolutism.

This distinction is interesting given their own pattern of deceit concerning all aspects of the war. Let’s review, shall we?

— They said Bush attacked Iraq “unilaterally,” when he built a coalition of over 30 nations, including Great Britain and tried hard to persuade the rest of Old Europe to join. To their discredit, they refused. A unilateralist wouldn’t have bothered.

— They deny Iraq is part of the war on terror, never mind that terrorists demonstrably disagree. Never mind that the Bush Doctrine clearly defines the enemy to include terrorist-sponsoring nations, like Saddam’s Iraq.

— They say Bush called Iraq an “imminent threat,” when he called it a “great and gathering threat.” The Bush Doctrine called for attacking threatening nations before they could become an imminent threat, when it would be too late. But some anti-war Democrats, like Jay Rockefeller, did call Iraq an “imminent threat.”

— They say Bush’s sole reason to attack Iraq was its WMD. In fact, David Horowitz notes there were 23 “whereas” clauses in the Iraq War resolution, only two of which mentioned WMD and 12 of which concerned Saddam’s violations of U.N. resolutions.

That is just a taste of it. Read the whole thing.

This is cross-posted at Wizbang, where there is lots of other good stuff too, so please click here.

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