MoDo’s column today contains this priceless gem:
Everyone knows Saddam is lying; the question is whether it’s worth a war. Mr. Blix undermined Mr. Powell by challenging some of his satellite evidence, and saying that Iraq was beginning to cooperate more and that no proof had yet been gathered that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Everyone knows he is lying…. Which is why the left and the UN is driving everyone with at least a half a brain up the wall. We know you know he is lying. But you would rather play games and provide the French and Germans cover for their petro-chemical deals becuase “Bush is a Moron” or “I just can’t trust Bush,” or this, the most annoying argument I have seen yet, stated by Paul Berman in Slate (via Matt Yglesias):
I am sorry that Fischer doesn’t seem to look on the present conflict as a new episode in that longer and honorable war. But I don’t think he is a knave for failing to do so. If a columnist at the Washington Post is going to sneer, he ought to spread his sneers?or at least his criticisms?a little more widely to include President Bush. Bush has failed to present the current war and its impending new Iraqi front in terms of a democratic struggle against totalitarianism. He has failed to discuss in any serious way the moral aspect of the war, has failed to present the war as an act of solidarity with horribly oppressed Iraqis and other victims of Muslim fascism, has failed to show the humanitarian aspect of the war, has failed to present the war in the light of the long history of anti-totalitarianism. The president has failed, all in all, to present the kind of arguments that might enlist the enthusiasm of people like Fischer, not to mention the enthusiasm of people in the Muslim and Arab world.
Translation- We know Saddam is lying, we know that there isall sorts of evidence against him, we know that he is in violation of the resolution we signed, we know that Saddam is a threat to his citizenry, his neighbors, and the world, but, we just haven’t received the type of nuanced argument we are likely to accept. Precisely who are the idiots, here? Bush???? For the love of everything holy, who is the moron- the person who knows what Saddam is up to and wants to do nothing about it, or the person who wants to do something about it. Think about it a while. First, go read this from the folks at the Samizdata. Then think about it some more. Then, if you are particularly obtuse and particularly shallow, maybe this will help. Imagine the face of your friends on those bodies. Or your children. Or yours.