David Corn challenges Karl Rove & other Bush apologists to a showdown on Iraq WMD

[Wetzelbill]

DavidCornDC I challenge @KarlRove, Peter Wehner & Ross Douthat to a showdown over Bush and Iraqi WMDs. Will any of them accept?
http://twitter.com/DavidCornDC

Can the 'Bush Lied' Deniers Handle the Truth?

Bring it on.

Conservative apologists for the George W. Bush crew are swinging hard these days to defend their man -- and themselves -- from the charge that W. and his gang misled the nation into war. They must worry that they are going to end up on the wrong side of history. After all, a 2008 Gallup poll found that 53 percent of Americans believed that the Bush administration "deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." (This was a big change from a poll taken two months after the 2003 invasion that noted that 67 percent believed Bush had played it straight.)

Still, my PoliticsDaily.com colleague, Peter Wehner, who worked in the W. White House, wants to mix it up over this. In a recent column, he took issue with a piece I had written decrying Iraq war triumphalism. Wehner disagreed on several fronts, but he zeroed in on what he derisively called the " 'Bush lied' mantra"-- meaning the assertion that his former boss bamboozled the public about Iraq's WMD capabilities. He scornfully wrote, "I fully understand that this remains an article of religious faith among many of those on the left. But there is no real evidence for it." And Karl Rove, who claims in his new book that Bush did not "lie us" into war, cheered on Wehner, tweeting on Tuesday, "Fantastic piece by fmr WH colleague Pete Wehner responding to @DavidCornDC on Iraq." Moreover, in a column this week, New York Times op-edder Ross Douthat, while assailing Matt Damon's "Green Zone," scoffed at "the comforts of a 'Bush lied, people died' reductionism." Accusing Bush of misrepresenting the case for war, Douthat huffs, is "glib" and "lame" scapegoating; the real explanation for what went wrong in Iraq, he asserts, is, well, more Shakespearean.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/17/can-the-bush-lied-deniers-handle-the-truth/

[Wetzelbill]

1. kick

[Marr]

2. I seriously doubt any of them will take him up on his offer.

I think most of them know it's only shallow spin. They want to toss their slogans and statements into the media whirlwind-- not defend them.

Still, good on David Corn-- I'd love to see him take these stooges apart.

[Bitwit1234]

3. I'd like to find out how

all those so called WMD's were streamed out of Iraq. Do they think our military was blind and wouldn't have seen it. After all the republicans rave over and over they support the military. Now they are calling ineffective and stupid to let thousands of WMD go out right under their nose. give me a break republicans. We aren't the lemmings that listen to rush and fox.

[ihavenobias]

4. That would be great.

Cowards won't accept of course.

[karynnj]

5. I wish anyone would point out that a HUGE amount of new intelligence

was available in March 2003, after the inspectors were in. This is when Bush made his decision.

Rove has pointed to people, even Boxer and Kennedy, who voted against the war, mentioning the intellgence that Saddam might have weapons of Mass Destruction. (He mentions Gore in September 2002 - ignoring that Gore also was against the rush to war.)

[gratuitous]

6. I like the general denials of "Bush lied"

None of them get into specifics, and virtually all of them boil down to "the intelligence the administration had." What goes unsaid, of course, is how the administration was cooking the "intelligence," fudging facts and disregarding inconvenient contrary facts. I think there were some actual Foggy Bottom boys who testified that when they reported that they couldn't find any of those ol' debbil weapons of mass destruction, the report was returned with the comment, "Wrong answer. Try again."

The administration was very careful to share only the intelligence that served its predetermined course of action, and it either deep-sixed or just plain ignored anything that didn't further the drive to invade. Neither Rove, nor Wehner, nor Douthat, nor any of the other apologists address this point. But I am confident Corn would bring it before their shifty eyes, which is why they'll never take him up on his challenge.