Bob Graham wants us to believe that Bush has lied, and he wants us to believe that he should be impeached. Check out his remarks yesterday:
Sen. Bob Graham defended his assertion that President Bush’s actions in making the case for the war in Iraq reach the standard of an impeachable offense set by Republicans against former President Clinton.
“Clearly, if the standard is now what the House of Representatives did in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, the actions of this president [are] much more serious in terms of dereliction of duty,” the Florida Democrat and presidential hopeful said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Sounds fair, reight? Except this is just bartisan BS coming from the Florida politico. When Graham states “if the standard is now what the House of Representatives did in the impeachment of Bill Clinton” he fails to mention that he was in the Senate at the time, and that he voted NO to all of the charges against Clinton.
In other words, Graham didn’t think that was the standard for impeachment then- and he probably doesn’t think it is the standard now, but he is running for president and needs to sling mud at Bush.
If you don’t think this is not just part of a series of DNC coordinated attacks and talkng points, you are nuts.
Matthew
Heh, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin went on CNN’s Late Edition and said that he doesn’t believe the president lied to the American people in the SOTU and that it certainly doesn’t merit impeachment. Graham’s campaign to be vice-president is faltering when your own party’s left undercuts you.
Barney Gumble
In other words
Francis W. Porretto
Graham is simply trying to out-outrageous the rest of the Democratic presidential pack. He knows quite well that:
1) Dubya’s statement was dead-on accurate — the Brits did indeed believe, and had reported to Washington, that Saddam was trying to purchase Nigerian yellowcake, and:
2) The only way to stir up any discomfort over the statement was to misrepresent it as the central casus belli, which it never was.
Dwarves always try to appear taller than they actually are. When they flock, they struggle for even the tiniest increments in apparent height — and that’s the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in a nutshell.
the talking dog
The White House admitted the inclusion of the statement referencing Niger uranium purchases by Iraq was a mistake. IMHO, trying to defend it as “accurate” is, also a mistake. Interestingly, Bill Clinton said that THAT should be the end of it.
The particular conclusion as to whether or not that particular statement is true or false is pretty much irrelevant to the standard for an impeachable offense, which no less a figure than Gerald FOrd described as “whatever the majority of the House of Representatives THINKS it is.”
Since the GOP led House wouldn’t impeach Bush for setting fire to a convent or nursery school on live television, I daresay we needn’t worry about this “theoretically accurate” (though- arguably misleading) statement, now do we?
In some sense, Graham is showboating– but hey, he’s way behind, so what do you expect him to do?
What matters about this scandal is what the VOTERS think about the IRaq thing. Right now, I have no idea. If the current status quo persists, and through the rest of the year the current casualty rate continues, Saddam is still out there, and the WMD and Al Qaeda questions are still unanswered, then the voters may want to take things out on the PResident (especially if the economy stays soft).
Or maybe the voters won’t care. Who knows? To be fair, only Howard Dean and Graham (of the semi-serious candidates) opposed entry into the war, and can credibly campaign on that issue (IMHO). If the voting public buys their view, Dubya’s in trouble. If it doesn’t, maybe he’ll outdo GHWB and get a second term.
Current trends: he won’t.
Andrew Lazarus
I’ll mention it again: Bush did not use the word “believe”. He used the word “learned”, and in that context, it implies the speaker believes the claim under discussion is true.
1. “Noam Chomsky believes the US government arranged 9/11.”
2. “Noam Chomsky has learned the US government arranged 9/11.”
You should see that the attitude of the speaker in 2. is significantly different with respect to 9/11. He is appearing to endorse Chomsky. (Disclaimer: I don’t think this is Chomky’s actual position and I don’t care.) Given that we know that the CIA had already told the Administration that the Brits were wrong, the very nicest thing we can say about Bush’s claim is that it represents wishful thinking. (As indeed, do so many of his statements.)
As far as a casus belli, I would suggest you drop this. Our justification at the time was a quite novel doctrine of unilateral pre-emptive war that could be justified only by appeals to imminent WMD deployment (remember, 45 minutes notice, and Condi saying we might find out from a mushroom cloud), which appear to be false from A to Z, and of which the Niger yellowcake fraud stands out as an icon. At this point, we are left (in contrast to the anti-Taliban War) with nothing resembling a traditional casus belli.
The new Republican talking point, as elucidated by Wolfowitz, Krauthammer, Den Beste, etc. is that our pre-war claims were insincere and offered only because the true reasons would not be as effective politically (I agree), but that the war is justified by its short-term result of eliminating the barbarous regime, and by its long-term “flypaper” plan to drain the swamp of anti-American Muslim terrorism. (Although, oddly, this swamp seemed to overlap Iraq in only the most tangential ways, now we can expect our soldiers to be the focal target. What brilliance!)
David Perron
And who said perpetual motion was impossible?
Robin Roberts
The statement wasn’t about Niger specifically and the CIA didn’t assert that the British were wrong. And now we see the attempt to sneak Tony Blair’s comment about 45 minutes into a discussion about President Bush. Its hilarious to see people who want to claim that President Bush was lying do so by misrepresenting so much.
Andrew Lazarus
David, I assume you’re referring to the endless changes in the rationalizations for the Iraq War. The technical term you are looking for is not “perpetual motion” but “Duhem retreat”.
Robin, Bush REPEATED the 45 minutes claim himself, once attributing it to the British and once asserting it in a press release AS A FACT. Care to try again, Robin? Would you like me to teach you about Google? Game over.
Face it, guys. The uranium story is total bullshit, if there are any other documents they are just as bogus, our own CIA has known that for many months, but it was too good a story for Bush to leave it out.
talking dog, good on you. Nice comment.
HH
Looks like Barney is trying out the blog post as modern art…
HH
Haven’t been reading your Howler, huh, Lazarus?
HH
FYI “current trends” have Bush up in the Newsweek poll of all things… his handling of the war up over the margin of error.
Andrew Lazarus
I respect the Daily Howler site, but as far as I can see, Bush cried “Wolf!” too often. Now I just assume it’s nonsense. Some day I might get burned. Aluminum tubes, canvas-sided trucks, Judith Miller watching a fake scientist point at the ground, balsa gliders, cave with paint residue….
It starts to read like the excuses in an African 4-1-9 scam to me, that’s the Africa connection.
(PS Yes, Clinton scored with Katherine Willey. Pattern and practice arguments cut both ways.)
Matthew
Ah, but did Clinton have Kathleen Willy’s cat murdered? That’s what we really want to know ;-)
David Perron
Wrong assumption, Andrew.
I was instead marveling at the ability of a meme to continue existence long after it’s run out of any kind of evidence to sustain it. I guess that presumes that there’s an actual need for some kind of evidenciary basis for motion to continue.
HH
There’s a difference between the iffy world of intelligence and the fog of war and a man who has been credibly accused of rape and said something he absolutely knew to be untrue, under oath and otherwise. Plus, multiple times Clinton implied Iraq had nuclear weapons.
HH
There’s a difference between the iffy world of intelligence and the fog of war and a man who has been credibly accused of rape and said something he absolutely knew to be untrue, under oath and otherwise. Plus, multiple times Clinton implied Iraq had nuclear weapons, bombed the aspirin factory, etc.
Robin Roberts
Andrew, when you are done bragging about your Google skills, start learning some basic logic.
M. Scott Eiland
Your best reply ever, Barney–my compliments.
Robin Roberts
It is astonishing that so many are so willing to misrepresent what the administration has said to build this pathetic “Bush lied” nonsense. And it is more astonishing that so many wish to continue to flog their own credibility. A press release that summarizes the British talking point of 45 minutes when its clear where its sourced from doesn’t contradict my point that the incoherent Bush haters are trying to conflate Tony Blair’s statements with President Bush’s. Nor has it been established that Iraq couldn’t have launched chemical or biological attack in short timeframe in 2002. Evidently, just claiming that the statement is false is proof – the unbalanced burden of proof showing the utter lack of logic in these meme.
The African/uranium only reinforces the inherent dishonesty of the Bush-haters, not President Bush.
Francis W. Porretto
Further ruminations here.
Andrew Lazarus
You know, Robin, normally when someone makes an extraordinary claim like “Iraq can attack us in 45 minutes”, the burden of proof is on them. There is NO EVIDENCE for this claim whatsoever. If I claim that the NAACP has a secret room with the keys to every white Southern woman’s bedroom (a meme of an earlier generation), is the burden of proof on me, or can I insist we take it seriously– even formulate political policy on that basis– until you have searched all NAACP property?
Your excuse that the press release summary doesn’t constitute an endorsement of this claim because it merely summarizes the “The British have learned….” (itself a fraud) is truly pitiful. You argue that “It [Iraq] could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given” really means “The British believe (and our CIA vehemently disagrees) that Iraq could launch….”. Wow, that’s something of a stretch. The plain meaning of the original sentence is **perfectly clear,** it just happens to be wrong. It alleges that Iraq can launch WMD, which they turned out not to have, on 45 minutes notice, which independent of the fact they didn’t have the weapons, was also beyond their tactical capabilities. Your reading comprehension is as weak as your research skills. Perhaps you should go scour Iraq for the weapons, and we can put your geography and chemistry to a similar test.
David Perron
“If I claim that the NAACP has a secret room with the keys to every white Southern woman’s bedroom (a meme of an earlier generation), is the burden of proof on me, or can I insist we take it seriously– even formulate political policy on that basis– until you have searched all NAACP property?”
Sounds as if Andrew has other issues bothering him besides the Stolen Presidency.