The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by J.C. Nossiter
Tuesday, October 12th, 2004
No WMD since 1991, no capacity to build WMD, the UN sanctions worked, and if Iraq ever did re-acquire such weapons, their intended use was against Iran. Every rationale for the administration’s $150 billion, 9,000 casualty occupation of Iraq is shown to be false by the government’s own investigator. But instead of hanging their heads in shame, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney trumpet the CIA Iraq report as demonstrating that Iraq was a genuine threat. With no apparent irony, Mr. Bush claims that Saddam Hussein would have restarted his weapons programs as soon as the world looked away, oblivious to the fact that his argument confirms the success of the UN sanctions he has disparaged.
The reaction to this inverting of the truth has been oddly muted, when there’s any reaction at all. Bob Herbert in the New York Times is a notable exception, but mostly the administration’s bare-faced lie has been greeted with dull indifference. News stories dutifully record the President’s statements, such as this one he made in Pennsylvania: "There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks." A chimerical risk indeed since the weapons had been destroyed ten years before and their reappearance depended on lifting sanctions no one, before we invaded Iraq, suggested lifting.
But such correctives to the President’s falsehoods are never offered, a passivity that can only be the result of lie fatigue. The condition, after all, has had a long onset. The symptoms first appeared with the theft of the 2000 election, when the voters and the media (and, seemingly, the Democratic party) were stunned by one of the biggest frauds in history. There were half-hearted attempts to get to the bottom of the big lie, but no efforts at all to reverse its consequences. A consortium of newspapers did pay for their own recount of the votes, concluding inconclusively and months later that the Bush campaign won Florida, but only if many and various types of disputed votes were excluded. The consortium’s own statistician determined that it was impossible to pick a winner from the data he collected.** No one insisted on a new vote, starting from scratch, in the sun-stroke state.
A less dazed electorate in 2000 might have demanded that Florida be declared a draw and the election decided on the basis of the popular ballot, which Mr. Gore won by over 500,000 votes. The dazed electorate of 2004 is just about as likely to demand that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney acknowledge the facts in their own report, admit that Iraq is a horrible mistake, and do something decisive about it right now.
General George Patton tried to cure the WWII battle fatigue of one of his men by smacking him across the face. His prescription probably didn’t work and very nearly got him fired. But looking at the dulled, dazed face of an electorate bludgeoned into quiescence by the lies of leaders whose opposition to our real interests have made them enemies, the General’s frustration, while unacceptable, is at least understandable. For the voters to be revived and brought to their senses before November 3rd, they need the truth thrust in their face, frequently and firmly. The Kerry campaign finally seems to agree that this is the right medicine. For all our sakes, let’s hope the patient can still be saved.
The Afternoon Affront
How typical of Mr. Cheney that his most memorable line in the vice-presidential debate – Senator, I’ve never met you before this evening – should have been an obvious lie. The Vice-President is on record as having met Senator Edwards on three prior occasions. At least one of those occasions was photographed. Perhaps Mr. Cheney forgot that he has met Mr. Bush as well. That might account for how very infrequently Mr. Vice acknowledged the existence of his alleged boss.
*http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/
**http://slate.msn.com/id/2058638
©J.C. Nossiter 2004
