Do they think we won’t remember?
In last night’s debate, the very first question went to Mitt Romney, who was asked whether it was “a mistake for us to invade Iraq.” After some odd hedging, Romney argued:
“[If] Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein, therefore, not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn’t be in the conflict we’re in.”
“But he didn’t do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.”
Now, I realize that 2003 was a long time ago. In fact, way back then, Romney was a pro-choice governor who supported gay rights, stem-cell research, and liberal immigration policies.
But there’s no reason to fabricate historical events that never occurred. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but as Greg Sargent explained, he did open up his country to IAEA inspectors. They conducted searches and found that his regime didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. This isn’t a matter of opinion or perspective — this is what happened.
If Romney wants to make the case that the invasion was wise, fine, let’s hear his case. But in discussing weapons inspectors, his version of events isn’t just wrong; it’s fantasy.
I should add, however, that it’s a fantasy the White House really likes.
As recently as January, Dick Cheney told a national television audience that Saddam “kicked out all of the inspectors,” despite, you know, reality.
For his part, the president has made the same ridiculous claim many, many times. As recently as March 2006, Bush said he went to war in part because Saddam “chose to deny inspectors.”
The first time Bush said this was in the summer of 2003, during a press conference with Kofi Annan. The president told reporters, “We gave [Saddam] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.”
In one of my favorite media moments of Bush’s presidency, the Washington Post reported the remarks the next day, telling readers, “The president’s assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring.” (Yes, “appeared.”)
A few days later, the Post’s Dana Milbank, who co-wrote the piece, was asked on CNN how Bush could make such a spectacularly dumb mistake. Milbank said, “I think what people basically decided was this is just the president being the president…. He is under a great deal of pressure.” (Yes, reporters expect Bush to say things that are patently false.)
And now, by adopting the truly ridiculous White House line, Romney joins this illustrative company. It’s horrifying, isn’t it?
I am curious about one thing, though. Does Romney (and the White House) expect us not to remember what actually happened in 2003? Do these guys think, “I’ll lie about the inspectors and maybe no one will pick up on it”?
Do they think we’re that dumb?
Do they think we’re that dumb?
They’re counting on it.
Of course they think we won’t remember, they are counting on it. They are also counting on the national media not doing the background work to find this out and put it in their articles and stories.
as long as americans pay more attention to paris hilton and ‘deal or no deal’ than they do to real-world issues, people like cheney and romney will continue to drive this country further and further into the pits of shame. they say the right words, give the pretty wink at the right time, and that’s all we need to give em 8 more years.
Let’s face it Carpetbagger. We are that dumb. Otherwise Bush would never be president in the first place.
another interesting thing to ponder is why none of the other guys on the stage called him on it? isn’t the idea of a debate to win while making your competitors look like clowns?
they don’t think “we” are that dumb. they think their voters are that dumb, and they know, from experience, that they won’t be called on their lies in any significant way.
sounds pretty smart to me.
Well, I don’t know. There’s an article in today’s WaPo, probably authored by Kagan although it’s unsigned, accusing VLADIMIR PUTIN of trying to “start a new cold war” with his allegedly “shrill rhetoric” on the issue of a proposed U.S. Missile Defence System on his doorstep. How many Americans remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the circumstances were effectively reversed? Does anybody think everybody’s forgotten that? Evidently, yes.
Let’s face it Carpetbagger. We are that dumb. Otherwise Bush would never be president in the first place.
Comment by Haik Bedrosian
Man oh man, you are right about this. 100% right.
Operation
Iraqi
Liberation
It is not about WMDs, Iraqi Freedom, terrorists, al Qaida, or Saddam Hussein. It is about OIL, OIL, OIL. Anybody that does not understand that has not been paying attention.
Bedrosian got it right . . .
A majority of the voting public has been proven conclusively to be that dumb. And a majority of the news media is either ‘that dumb’ too or they’re ‘on the winning team’.
The problem here is that the news media has sold out.
“Hans Blix?? Never heard of him.”
You are forgetting the audience. The people these pinheads are talking to insist on many false truths. Only this morning on NPR’s DR show, the guest repeated that Libby’s imprisonment would be a farce since there was no underlying crime and Plame was not undercover and did not travel. Three lies rolled into one soundbite that went unchallenged by the moderator or the opposing guest. Then there’s Faux News running Conyers instead of Jefferson, oops (ahhahahahahahhaha!!!) Bush and his ilk have mastered the intentional blunder, the blurring of truth by constantly repeating falsehood, then pretending if called on it, that it was a misstatement, or qualified by this context or that preface, the nature of the question. This entertainment is for hardcore republicans only, creating their own reality. The people interested in that debate are not interested in what really happened, quite the opposite, they are desperate for the immediate rewriting of recent history.
CB asks: Do they think we’re that dumb?
No, they know that the smart people know what really happened, but they also know that the media is so corrupt that it will let this lie slide just like their lies linking Saddam and 9/11. And because of the media’s failure to do it’s job, the Republican base (and many others) will believe the new lies about Syria and Iran and so on.
BushCo knows that the media decides what “the truth” is for many people, and they play that for all its worth. Those who know the truth get to go along for the ride.
It may even be that Romney believes his BS statements. But that doesn’t make them true.
Romney is right…they (the audience) didn’t pick up on it. There are still republicans walking around saying Iraq attacked us on 9/11. The GOP candidates still push fear to justify their ridiculous rhetoric. I find it laughable that a media hack like Gulliani is even a candidate. Romney is power hungry and ridiculous on foreign policy…put ‘em all in Guitmo and nuke all those foreign bastards whose names I can’t remember.
Time to state what Regan really meant by his 9 hated words…”I’m from the government and I’m here to help”, What Regan really hated was…”I’m from the government and I’m here to regulate”.
No one gets to regulate my profiteering. I’ll make money anyway I can and screw the environment, and “bad luck” Katrina victims. this is my money.
To Ronnie, the government doesn’t “help” (the rich) they just want to regulate(the rich). The GOP hasn’t changed much. Look at the war profiteers and the corporate oil barons swimming in money thanks to the policies of these yahoo cowboys.
Who is this collective “we”. I didn’t vote for Bush or any of the rest of these idiots. I’ve stood against all of his policies and actions. And so have most of the people I know.
Didn’t Saddam prevent inspectors from entering his pallace(s) prior to the invasion? Then Bush gave his “48 hours” speech.
The following was true in 1924 when first stated, and is only moreso today:
“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” - H.L. Mencken
BTW, Romney also goes on to indicate that he thinks Saddam might have sent the WMDs to Syria, getting rid of the most effective defense he could have used against US forces.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/08/romney-wmd/
The man is a psycho.
Well, they do have the luxury of being able to make up their own realities all the time, while those of us in the reality-based community are burdened by such trivial inconveniences as “facts”. Really, we ought to be pushing reality in their faces and force them to confront it, rather than let them continue to get away with it. If only every press conference question began with calling him on something as patently false as this.
Racerx wrote: “BTW, Romney also goes on to indicate that he thinks Saddam might have sent the WMDs to Syria, getting rid of the most effective defense he could have used against US forces.”
The Syria conspiracy theory continues to baffle me. Saddam couldn’t successfully hide himself from U.S. forces, and he’s only about 200 pounds of material. But Romney and friends seem to think he managed to hide 200+ tons (or however much they think he had) of WMDs without leaving a single witness or piece of evidence to their location.
Well, their base IS that dumb!
It’s shameful. One subtle thing is that Romney seems not to know the diff between UNMOVIC, UNSCOM and IAEA and their respective histories and roles. The significance of that ignorance in particular is that the IAEA not only went into Iraq to conduct inspections (and disarmament verification) but since their role was specifically **nuclear weapons program related**, they produced a preliminary, but detailed, report prior to the invasion which pretty well debunked the scary nuclear weapons case (yellowcake, aluminum tubes, nuclear muhejedin, etc., etc). Search for their damning indictment of the Bush flim-flam on
So Romney is not only uninformed, he’s uninformed in a way that very explicitly undercuts his rhetoric about the justification for invading. The other inspections were proceeding at whatever pace, but the IAEA folks quite convincingly proved disarmament and made the Bush claims look **horrible**.
Obviously, yes — as a country, I mean. And you have to admit there’s a considerable body of evidence to support that conclusion. They’ve been out there claiming up is down and black is white for several years now and they do seem to get away with it more often than not.