Iraqi Blowback

[Tigermike 3,060]

“This behavior that Hanson discusses is not just payback for Iraq--it is payback for 2000. It is payback for 9/11; it is payback for all the shame and humiliation of the Clinton impeachment.

But make no mistake about it, it is payback. And to get even; to "undo" everything and everyone connected to this Administration is absolutely necessary to maintain a disintegrating political self-esteem and the loser ideology they subscribe to.

Do you wonder why there has been no serious discussion in this country about the Iraq war? The reason is that the side making up the bogus scandals to undermine the Bush Presidency doesn't really want to debate how to win the Iraq war--they want to lose it, so as to further discredit a Republican president that they despise. They don't want to argue on the merits; or discuss strategy-- because their fundamental position has no merit; and the only strategy they are capable of creating relates to regaining power. The trivialities and personal attack-scandals the Democrats and the left hype and choose to focus on simply pale in comparison to the unbelievable actions of their own---people like Sandy Berger and Kofi Annan to name just two. Both of these individuals have basically gotten off scott free for their amazing behavior--behavior the import of which cannot be underestimated.”

April 16, 2007, 6:00 a.m.

Iraqi Blowback

Explaining why Paul Wolfowitz is a travesty and Sandy Berger is a snooze.

By Victor Davis Hanson

The resigned Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame’s name, a fact known to a special prosecutor charged with finding out who did and if were a crime. After hours of testimony, he was found self-contradictory under oath (though self-contradictory hardly to the extent of a Joe Wilson who said and wrote things about his yellow-cake inquiries that could not be conceivably true), and now faces a possible prison sentence.

Ditto the exemption given to the Duke accuser who repeatedly lied in her sworn testimonials, but will apparently not be charged with perjury because her stories are so implausible that officials think she must be unhinged — a new rationale that the perjurer is apparently free from indictment when the concoctions exceed possible belief.

Alberto Gonzalez perhaps (emphasize “perhaps,” as yet we don’t know all the facts) showed a lapse in judgment or at least of political savvy by firing politically appointed federal attorneys, something that was not unusual in past Democratic administrations.

Paul Wolfowitz, who sought to curb corruption that undermines support for World Bank aid to Africa, likewise is facing a lynch mob over perhaps a similar one-time lapse of judgment in regard to compensation of a companion — nothing, however, ranking with the various scandals surrounding Kofi Annan, whose son profited by United Nations exemptions given through his family ties. In today’s moral calculus, presiding over a $50-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food scandal that led to frequent death in Iraq and profit among global elites is a misdemeanor, recommending a pay package for an employee one dates is an unforgivable felony.

One could go on with the furor over the misdirected pellets from Dick Cheney’s shotgun, or the clamor for the Rumsfeld resignation. Yet contrast all this hysteria with the slight whimpers surrounding recent controversies over conflicts of interest or lapses in judgment surrounding Richard Armitage, Harry Reid, or Dianne Feinstein. The destruction of federal documents that might well alter history’s consensus by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was a snore for most journalists.

What, then, is the one common tie that explains all these furious efforts of the media and partisans to go after these present and former Bush-administration officials?

link

http://drsanity.blogspot.com/