{"id":11035,"date":"2007-06-06T13:15:44","date_gmt":"2007-06-06T17:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11035.html"},"modified":"2007-06-06T13:15:44","modified_gmt":"2007-06-06T17:15:44","slug":"do-they-think-we-wont-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/do-they-think-we-wont-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"Do they think we won’t remember?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“[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.”<\/p>\n

“But he didn’t do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But there’s no reason to fabricate historical events that never occurred. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, but as Greg Sargent explained<\/a>, he did<\/i> open up his country to IAEA inspectors. They conducted searches and found that his regime didn’t<\/i> have weapons of mass destruction. This isn’t a matter of opinion or perspective — this is what happened<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I should add, however, that it’s a fantasy the White House really likes.
\n
\nAs recently as January, Dick Cheney told<\/a> a national television audience that Saddam “kicked out all of the inspectors,” despite, you know, reality.<\/p>\n

For his part, the president has made the same ridiculous claim many, many times<\/a>. As recently as March 2006, Bush said he went to war in part because Saddam “chose to deny inspectors.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

In one of my favorite media moments of Bush’s presidency, the Washington Post reported<\/a> 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.”)<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

And now, by adopting the truly ridiculous White House line, Romney joins this illustrative company. It’s horrifying, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

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”?<\/p>\n

Do they think we’re that<\/i> dumb?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}