Bush Tries to Whitewash History; Portrays Himself as a Victim

By Matthew Yglesias, The American Prospect. Posted December 17, 2008.

Instead, Bush decided to invade.

The result has been the death of more Americans than were killed on September 11 and serious injuries to thousands more Americans. An unknown number of Iraqis -- perhaps hundreds of thousands -- have died in the resulting chaos, and millions have been displaced from their homes. Important American strategic objectives were left unfulfilled in Afghanistan, the once-promising prospects for a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran were scuttled, and North Korea accelerated its own proliferation activities. And all this at a fiscal cost in excess of $100 billion a year for a conflict that will be longer than the Civil War or World War II when it's done. That -- not bad intelligence -- is something to regret.

Meanwhile, one might wonder how Bush is able to get away with such bald-faced deceptions. The answer, unfortunately, goes beyond the fecklessness of the media. As Greg Sargent at the blog Talking Points Memo observes, "many supporters of the war -- Dems and liberal hawks included -- also have a vested interest in pretending that the good intel never existed and those inspectors never said what they said." There were some, of course, like former Sen. Bob Graham and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both former chairs of the House and Senate intelligence committees, who did the work, read the reports, and refused to back the war. But many, such as key Democratic Party leaders including incoming Vice President Joe Biden and incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, did otherwise.

In the interests of party unity and moving forward with as strong a team as possible, President-elect Barack Obama has followed up a successful primary campaign based largely on a critique of these Democratic hawks' poor judgment with a spirit of reconciliation rather than an attempted purge. That's probably the right move, but it, combined with many Democratic leaders' bad record on this issue, means that there's no vigorous opposition to Bush's efforts to rewrite history. And that, in turn, is something we may have occasion to regret someday. Perhaps some future president will decide to repeat Bush's mistakes. Then one must fear that future legislators will repeat those of the members of Congress who failed to seriously challenge the president's distortions around Iraq and suffered so little for it personally, while the country and the world suffered so much.

Reprinted with permission from Matthew Yglesias. "Bush's Pity Party," The American Prospect Online: December 4, 2008. www.prospect.org. The American Prospect, 1710 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, 12th Floor, Washington, DC, 20036. All rights reserved.

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Matthew Yglesias is a staff writer at The American Prospect.

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