Am I a Hypocrite?

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  • 03/02/2023

I got an email from somebody named Rajeev regarding my column yesterday.  He asked for a reply, so I thought I would do that here.  Rajeev said:

[My column mentions] that Bush went to war in Iraq to get rid of a tyrant.  …I agree that we needed to get rid of Saddam but please do not call it a moral obligation for USA as we still support Dictators in other countries.  I think you are a hypocrite in this regard as getting rid of Saddam was to bring democracy?

I think Rajeev missed the main point I was trying to make (perhaps I’m too subtle).  The column was not about my opinion on whether we should have gone to war or not.  The column was not about what people think President Bush’s rationale for war was.  The column was specifically about what President Bush said in his State of the Union address.

A caller on Hannity’s show yesterday pushed the guest host, Mark Simone, regarding a quote from a letter Joe Wilson wrote.  The caller was upset because Simone pulled a quote without reading the whole letter.  The caller was passionate that we can only form our opinion about the Wilson/Niger/uranium position if we hear the whole letter.  The caller, and so many like him, want to thoroughly, completely, exhaustively, ridiculously and absurdly look at every possible aspect and angle of the sixteen words, but only those sixteen words. 

This brings me back to the point I was trying to make in my column.  Why are those sixteen words so important?  The media made a major news story over those sixteen words.  That led to a Wilson opinion-editorial column.  That led to talk about how Wilson was put in position to do an investigation that made his opt-ed column possible in the first place.  That led to a column by Robert Novak.  That led to a scandal created by the news media.  That led to an investigation.  That led to more news, a lot more news.  The investigation also led to an indictment.  That led to more news.  But, the Democrats in the Senate didn’t think it was enough news, so that led them shut down the Senate in an effort to create more news.  That led to everybody talking about uranium again.  All of it was about sixteen words.

The points I tried to make in my column are:

  1. Doesn’t this seem like a lot of attention regarding sixteen words in a State of the Union address?
  2. Has anybody bothered to look at what else President Bush said in the same address?
  3. The Democrats and the MSM are using the premise that all of the attention of the sixteen words is important, because THAT WAS WHAT PRESIDENT BUSH USED TO SELL THE WAR.  In the context of the entire address, is that premise valid?

To repeat, Harry Reid used the following 26 words to sell his rationale for shutting down the Senate:

“The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war…”

To agree with Harry Reid, the Democrats and the MSM, you have to read the ENTIRE State of the Union address and come to the conclusion that President Bush was relying on the over hyped sixteen words to sell the war.

So, to Rajeev, Matthew and all the other people who emailed me, I will be very clear.  The only debate about my column yesterday I’m interested in having is whether those sixteen words were really all that important.  Please read the State of the Union address before you respond.  After you have read the entire address, make your best case that the President’s justification for war boiled down to those sixteen words.  If you need help, call Harry Reid.

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