Thursday, February 5, 2004I DON'T GET IT At this point we all realize that there were some serious problems with the intelligence information being supplied to President Bush prior to the liberation of Iraq. Based on that intelligence information Bush thought that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that could be pressed into service in short order. Not only did George Bush believe this intelligence information, but so did quite a few other people. Do you need some reminders? OK .. here goes. On October 9, 1998 some members of the U.S. Senate sent a letter to Bill Clinton expressing their concerns about Saddam and his weapons program. That letter contained this paragraph: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction program."
That letter was signed by Tom Daschle, Carl Levin and John Kerry .. three Senators, one a probable Democratic nominee for president, who are now slamming George Bush for acting on the very intelligence they relied on for their 1998 letter to their president, Bill Clinton. Carl Levin is particularly obnoxious. I saw him on some talking head show earlier this week pressing the idea that Bush should have known that the intelligence information he was relying on was faulty. In September of 2002 Levin said "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Levin, it seems, believed the exact same intelligence information that Bush relied on ... and now he's faulting Bush. How about some other names of people who believed that Saddam had a weapons program and a stockpile of WMDs? Let's put Nancy Pelosi on that list, and there's Clinton's Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Al Gore said "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Ted Kennedy said "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." How about some more from John Kerry? On October 9th of last year Kerry said "I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real grave threat to our security." In January of this year Kerry said "So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real." Now we are hearing doubts about the quality of that intelligence. Maybe Saddam didn't have the weapons. Maybe he shipped them out to Syria and Iran. Maybe his own scientists were telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. OK .. let me try to create a little scenario for you. Let's say that NASA scientists together with experts from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California suddenly discover that there is a 15-mile-wide asteroid heading for the earth. If that asteroid strikes the earth millions of people will die. The president of the United States orders a very expensive crash program to develop a response. Billions of dollars are poured into an all-out project to develop and launch a dozen nuclear-tipped rockets toward the asteroid to destroy it before it crashes into the earth. To fund the project billions are taken from various social projects. People suffer. The deficit blossoms. A debt is created that our grandchildren will have to pay. The project is successful. The missiles score a direct hit on the asteroid and it is blasted into thousands of smaller fragments. Unfortunately some of those fragments are still large enough to cause severe damage and kill hundreds of people when they crash into the earth. Later, after the danger is past, we discover that the NASA scientists who originally warned of the threat from this asteroid made a little mathematical miscalculation. The asteroid was actually going to pass harmlessly between the moon and the earth. We now know that all of that money was wasted. Not only that, but those people who died when smaller fragments hit the earth would still be alive today if the asteroid had just been left alone. Who do we blame here? Do we blame the president? He was acting on the information available to him at the time. He had no real choice but to trust that information. To ignore the warnings of the impending strike could be to pass a death sentence on millions. You can't condemn the president for acting on information that he, and the rest of the world, thought to be correct. Another quicker example. A surgeon finds a lump in your breast. He wants to do a biopsy. A test of the lump shows it to be benign. Do you condemn the doctor because he didn't know that the growth was benign before he went in there with a scalpel? Now, after Saddam has been deposed and after Iraq has been liberated, we find that some of the intelligence information was faulty. What do we do? Blame Bush for acting on information that was believed to be true at the time action was taken? All of this 20-20 hindsight is wonderful, but when it comes to the defense of our country you can act on what you think might be true in 12 months, you act on what you believe to be true right now. A bloodthirsty dictator has been removed from power. Rape rooms are no longer in operation in Iraq. The torture chambers have been shut down. Mass graves containing hundreds of thousands have been uncovered. Saddam will never again use chemicals to kill tens of thousands of his enemies. And this is somehow bad? RUMSFELD STRIKES BACK; SAYS IRAQ LIKELY HAD WMD Well it's about time somebody said it. Testifying before Congress yesterday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that it is "not likely" that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction when the war broke out last March. This of course puts him at odds with the recently resigned weapons inspector, David Kay. If you listen to the media, the entire administration is supposed to be sitting around with egg on their face over this issue. Goes to show you what they know. Rumsfeld refused to back down from his prewar statements that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons. He went on to say "it took us 10 months to find Saddam Hussein. The reality is that the hole he was found hiding in was large enough to hold enough biological weapons to kill thousands of human beings." Of course, this isn't good enough for the Bush-haters. No....you see, those on the left hold America to a higher standard. Not only do we have to prove what is there, we have to prove what is not there, an almost impossible task in a country the size of Texas. Rumsfeld said that the decision to go to war was based on 10 years worth of intelligence endorsed by the Clinton and Bush administrations. Not to mention Saddams' 12 years of UN defiance. Of course, that gets forgotten. Again, none of that matters. It's all about hating Bush as much as possible. Boy, those Democrats sure are bitter people. DEANIE BABIES SPUTTER INTO MICHIGAN AND WASHINGTON This is getting downright embarrassing. Who would have thought? Just a month ago, Howard Dean was on every magazine cover being touted as the front-runner. Now, not only is he not the front runner, but he is now running in fourth place. Much to the absolute horror of the Deanie Babies, things have gone terribly wrong. And so what is next? Well, of course, he needs to win somewhere. But where? This Saturday are the delegate-rich Michigan and Washington caucuses, followed by Maine on Sunday. Are people in the Democratic party going to continue to bet on a loser? This should be good. Dean says he has to win Washington, but what advantage does he have there? The governor and most of the congressional delegation there supports Kerry. Well, it turns out there is one. He was endorsed early on by Baghdad Jim McDermott, the congressional Democrat that went to Iraq before the war to try and convince the world that Saddam was really just misunderstood. The 2004 Howard Dean campaign will go down in history as one of the biggest political busts ever. THIS SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE STATE OF OUR ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY , DOESN'T IT? We now learn that this weekend's Grammy Awards is going to be telecast with some sort of an enhanced delay system. Ditto for the Oscars broadcast later on. Why the delay system? So that obscenities or nudity can be deleted before being broadcast to American homes. This is the entertainment industry we all fawn over. Now television executives can't even broadcast awards shows without delay systems. Says a lot, doesn't it? READING ASSIGNMENTS Here's the text of a speech made by John Kerry on the floor of the Senate on February 27, 1992. In this speech he says that he's "saddened that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign." This speech was delivered after Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran and 1992 candidate for the Democratic nomination, criticized Bill Clinton for his lack of military service during Vietnam. Now ... 14 years later ... it's Kerry who's the candidate, and it's Kerry who's criticizing another candidate's service during Vietnam. Now we're starting to learn a little about John Kerry ... the hero who is going to save us from the influence of all those "special interests." Here's a revealing little story about favors done and favors received. Now this is going a bit far. NBC has pressured the producers of ER to remove a shot of an 80-year-old breast in tonight's episode. I have no personal experience to draw on, but I don't think that a shot of an 80-year-old woman's breast on television is going to draw the outrage that accompanied a glimpse of Janet Jackson's offering. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney weighs in on how to protect the institution of marriage. The cowardly Wisconsin legislature can't step up and override the Governor's veto of a concealed weapons bill. Ann Coulter speaks out about boobs...both Janet Jackson's and the Democratic candidates for president. Think airport security has improved since 9/11? Think again. A U.S. Customs Department whistleblower says it's no better. A bill barring illegal aliens from enrolling in Virginia's state colleges is expected to pass their legislature today. How about a bill in the US Congress keeping them out in the first place? So now what is Howard Dean doing? According to this column, his new strategy is to roll over like a possum and play dead. There is hope yet: even in a liberal state like Oregon, voters have just rejected a huge tax increase there. Score one for limited government. Robert Novak talks about John Kerry's one glaring weakness: the south. It's the burning issue that keeps every Bush-hater awake at night: did Bush lie about the WMD in Iraq? Larry Elder examines the issue. George Will breaks down the state-by-state issues facing the Democrats running for president. A group of Cubans set sail for Florida yesterday in a '59 Buick. This has to be seen to be believed. It is the goal of the TSA to make it as difficult as they possibly can for a pilot to carry a gun in the cockpit. We have former police officers, firearms instructors and military pilots who have been rejected. Go figure. | 
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