The President Comes Out Swinging (Finally)!

At long last, the President is defending himself against the "Bush lied, people died" mantra that many in the Democratic party repeat in varying forms of sophistication.  Michelle Malkin has the key quote from the President's speech yesterday, which is led by:  "While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."  The whole speech is here.  And it lays out the President's policy and approach in detail.

Yet, one commenter still suggests that the President is trying to "gag" dissent. No, he's trying to engage in a productive dialogue, ideally about how to prosecute the Iraq war and the war against terrorists. The Washington Post reports that Senator Kennedy finds it "deeply regrettable" that the President made such a "campaign-like" speech on Veterans Day.  I suspect that Senator Kennedy would find just about any major speech that the President gives to be "campaign-like."  In addition, President Bush is a politician, and politicians need to advocate for their position. 

Also according to the Post article, Senator Kerry weighed in: "This administration misled a nation into war by cherry-picking intelligence and stretching the truth beyond recognition," he said. "That's why Scooter Libby has been indicted."  Whoa. Enough.  First, Senator Kerry was misled, if anyone was.  As we all know, that even in the campaign, in 2004 and with the benefit of hindsight, Senator Kerry said he would have still voted to give the President authority to execute the Iraq War.  Furthermore, unlike most of us, Senator Kerry was in a position to investigate and inquire as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  That is the job of the loyal opposition and our elected officials -- they are not supposed to allow themselves to be "misled".  The only logical conclusion is that he must have been persuaded at the time or he wasn't doing his job.  Then, the Senator makes his own misleading argument, suggesting that the Scooter Libby indictment is an indicia of the Administration's misleading ways.  First, Scooter Libby is only indicted, and there are many indictments that don't lead to conviction.  Second, Scooter Libby wasn't indicted because of  the intelligence issues related to the run-up to the war.  Scooter Libby was indicted because he allegedly  "made materially false and misleading statements" in the course of the investigation.   Perhaps Senator Kerry could read the indictment to be clear about the issues. 

Comments

[the sapling]

very wll done!

[Heraldblog]

I'm confused about something. If the president is concerned about his critics trying to 'rewrite history', then why is he putting so much effort into obstructing any independent inquiry that could allow an accurate first draft of the history to be written?