One of the more painful political moments of Bush’s presidency came in the immediate run up to the 2002 elections. Bush was desperate to pin Dems down in support of an Iraqi-invasion policy, and Dems were desperate not to appear “weak” in the first national election cycle after the 9/11 attacks. Republicans were shamelessly demagogic, Dems were cowardly, and the result were congressional majorities, just a few weeks before voters went to the polls, supporting a war that did not need to be fought — a war, we now know, that quickly became a fiasco.
And yet, there was Karl Rove on The Charlie Rose Show, playing his host and the audience for fools.
ROVE: [O]ne of the untold stories about the war is why did the United States Congress, the United States Senate, vote on the war resolution in the fall of 2002?
ROSE: Why?
ROVE: This administration was opposed to it. I’m going to talk about that in my book… [T]he administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002.
ROSE: Because?
ROVE: Because we didn’t think it belonged in the confines of the election. We thought it made it too political. We wanted it outside the confines of the election. It seemed it make things move too fast. There were things that needed to be done to bring along allies and potential allies abroad and yet…
But you were opposed to the vote.
ROVE: It happened. We don’t determine when the Congress vote on things. The Congress does.
ROSE: You wish it hadn’t happened at that time. You would have preferred it did not happen at that time.
ROVE: That’s right.
ROSE: Because your argument– your argument is you would have had maybe more inspections. You would have been able to build a broader coalition. You could have done a whole lot other things if you didn’t have to have a vote, right?
ROVE: Right, right, exactly.
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me.
It’s possible that Rove has an extraordinarily bad memory. It’s possible that Rove was under the influence of some illegal medication. It’s possible that Rove has suffered some kind of head trauma that prevents him from telling the truth.
But in all likelihood, Rove is a coward, afraid of reality. For him to tell a national television audience that Iraq is Congress’ fault is one of the more audacious, breathtaking lies a Bushie has told about this war in years.
The reality, of course, as Faiz documented very well, is the opposite of what Rove suggested. Everyone from Tom Daschle to Nancy Pelosi to Dick Durbin all said voting after the election would depoliticize it.
Bush wouldn’t hear of it, telling Daschle, “We just have to do this now.” The president told the nation that even a brief delay would act against “our national interests.” White House toadies in Congress were only too happy to use Bush’s playbook — then-NRCC Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) said, “This could be the vote of the decade, so why wait?”
And yet, there was Rove, arguing the opposite, and hoping like hell Charlie Rose wouldn’t notice how transparently ridiculous his claim really was (Rose didn’t challenge Rove’s obvious lie).
It opens a new chapter in the annals of White House mendacity — if only Congress hadn’t been in a rush to war, politicizing the conflict, perhaps the inspectors could have taken their time and we could have avoided this tragic debacle. It’s like being stuck in a Twilight Zone episode.
Only someone who has utter contempt for Americans could offer such a bold lie. It’s that simple.