"The president of the United States and the vice president of the United States may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq."She said (paraphrasing from memory), "When Kerry says that, he sounds awful, because he saw the same intelligence that the President saw, and he voted to go to war, himself." Imus agreed with this bizarre comment, which is basically a repetition of the official White House party line.
A few points:
1) Kerry's statement about Bush and Cheney's insane denial on the subject of Iraq was TERRIFIC, not awful. Thank God SOMEONE said it.
2) Kerry's statement didn't have a THING to do with the original vote for military action in Iraq. Zero. It refers to Bush's CURRENT response to what we CURRENTLY know. So why the implication that the statement is a reference to the original decision to invade? It isn't, and it OBVIOUSLY isn't.
3) I am tired of this claim that Kerry saw "the same intelligence" that Bush saw. That's crap - of COURSE he didn't. What, exactly, does that mean? Are these folks claiming that Bush leaked his PDBs to Senator Kerry? Are they claiming that Kerry knew that our intelligence department said that there was no hard evidence that Hussein was stockpiling WMD? Are they claiming that Kerry knew that Rice was lying when she said that the aluminum tubes could only be used for nukes?
Kerry did NOT see the same intelligence that Bush saw, and neither did ANY Senator. We now know that our intelligence agencies painted a VERY different picture of the situation than Bush was painting, and that Bush suppressed that information. It was NOT told to the Senate. For example (one of many), the CIA told Bush that those aluminum tubes WEREN'T for nukes. But the Senate was told that they certainly were. Bush cherry-picked the intelligence, and the Senate saw only the intelligence that the White House let them see. We now know that the White House only revealed the information that bolstered their case, and suppressed any information that didn't.
3) The vote to authorize military action in Iraq was NOT a vote to start a war, and Bush SAID that it wasn't a vote to start a war. I know I've gone over this before:
Here is what George W. Bush said about the vote for authorization:
"Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something."
Here is what John Kerry said about that vote at the time, and about WHAT he was voting for and WHY he was voted for it:
"As the President made clear earlier this week, 'approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable.' It means 'America speaks with one voice.'...
...In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days-- to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force.
If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out."
Seems pretty clear to me. What Kerry said then is EXACTLY what he says now. Exactly. He gave Bush the authority to use force IF NECESSARY, with the understanding that other options would be exhausted first, and with the understanding that we would act as part of an international effort. That was Bush's OWN CLAIM about the vote. The vote for authorization was to give Bush a big stick and a strong bargaining chip - not so he would heedlessly rush to war like it was an emergency when there WAS no emergency. Bush himself said that that was what it was for. Then he flip-flopped.
But why is an NBC White House Correspondent on the air repeating the White House's phony spin points?
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