In a lot of ways, the height of the Bush dynasty, from 2002-2006, never happened as far as the chattering classes are concerned:
For moderate voters clinging to some faith in government, the question over the past two decades of mostly two-party rule was: Can’t Washington do anything?
Now, with one party pretty much in control, the question has become both more hopeful and more anxious: Will Washington do anything responsibly?
Is Hiatt actually claiming that a 3.5 trillion dollar war was responsible? That running up hundreds of billions of deficits during a time of economic expansion was responsible? That Democrats had any say in government from 2002-2006?
The period between 9/11 and Katrina was a truly embarrassing time for our government and for our press corps. So why not just pretend it didn’t happen? Pretend this never happened:
I think we were very deferential, because in the East Room press conference, it’s live. It’s very intense. It’s frightening to stand up there… You are standing up on prime time live television, asking the president of the United States a question when the country is about to go to war.
Pretend this never happened:
In this autumn of anger, even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to … torture. OK, not cattle prods or rubber hoses, at least not here in the United States, but something to jump-start the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history. Right now, four key hijacking suspects arenât talking at all.
And it isn’t just the media of course: it still amazes me that Hillary Clinton never addressed her Iraq war vote during the 2008 campaign. And that her failure to address it is rarely cited as a reason why she lost.
Linkmeister
Ordinarily I can figure out the meaning of bollixed sentences, but that one defeats me. ;)
$3.5T was irresponsible? Was that what you intended?
DougJ
“was was” was meant to be “war was”.
PurpleGirl
Hmmm, let’s see, is that money for the wars in the main budget? No. So it’s all Enron-type accounting, off the books, in budget supplement bills… must not have happened then. Nothing to see here.
InflatableCommenter
Correlation is not causation.
Anne Laurie
Fixted.
TenguPhule
Yes, Yes, Yes.
SATSQ.
This may be the only case where destroying the village to save it makes any real sense.
None of these talking dittoheads are salvagable as human beings. Not one.
Bill E Pilgrim
My comment at the WAPO site attached to his article that I put there just after it was posted started with this:
“Anything that doesn’t include decisions being made by the extremist, Rush Limbaugh-worshipping Republicans can only be a vast improvement. Unless you think the policies of the extreme right fanatic Bush Administration were somehow anything resembling “responsible”? Oh right. You probably do.”
I never know if it’s worth commenting in places like that, it feels like dropping it into a cesspool like a tiny drop of clorox and hoping it will have an effect.
And yes, I think the answer is that Fred Hiatt probably does think that invading Iraq was responsible. Hiring Bush’s chief speech writer to continue to push that view was the dead giveaway, along with Krauthammer, Kagan, Kristol, and George Will. Among others.
Mike S
If they had to admit all of the outrages that went on during the last 8 years, they’d have to show their complicity in it. Especially Hiatt.
bago
This would be an interesting set of questions to ask war advocates.
Question: How certain are you that the casus belli is true?
Answer: blah%.
Question. Are you willing to right now take blah% of all of your wealth, holdings, and future income into a trust to pay for the rehabilitation of the veterans of this action?
It would be illustrative.
Spiffy McBang
“Correlation is not causation.”
Additionally, didn’t she plead the generic Democratic defense of believing faulty intel whenever the subject was raised? It seemed like people jumped on it early, since Obama was against the war from the start, but she kept blaming the intelligence reports and the media let it go at that.
JGabriel
DougJ:
Doug, I’m surprised you even asked that. A 3.5 trillion dollar war against a country that hadn’t attacked us was undoubtedly responsible in Hiatt’s worldview.
.
Davis X. Machina
Hey, there were a couple of elections in there that needed to get won. I don’t think $3 trillion or so was a small price to pay to hang onto the White House and Congress for a few years, when it meant being able to run the regulatory apparatus, appoint judges, delay gay marriages, and prevent a small increase in the top marginal income tax rate, do you?
DougJ
Something like that. It was weak sauce, though.
David
“Canât Washington do anything?”
What about invading and occupying another country? Isn’t that doing something? The pride we feel and public relations accolades were worth it. Not to mention the feeling of satisfaction from a job well done.
“Canât Washington do anything?”
Medicare Part D
“Canât Washington do anything?”
No Child Left Behind
“Canât Washington do anything?”
Puh-lease!
kommrade reproductive vigor
Shorter F.H.: Some of you may think we sat on our thumbs and bleated in compliance with the worst president evar, but – Look! A seagull!
NonyNony
@Spiffy McBang:
Well of course they did – the pundits wanted to be held to the same standard. “Everyone was lying to us – how could WE possibly know we were being lied to? What do we look like, journalists or something?”
anonevent
Couldn’t resist.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
And it isnât just the media of course: it still amazes me that Hillary Clinton never addressed her Iraq war vote during the 2008 campaign.
Umm, she did address it. She wasn’t going to apologize and even said so. Don’t you remember where she said if you didn’t like her vote, you could vote for someone else? It was at the very beginning of the primaries.
DougJ
She never gave a very good explanation of why she voted the way she did.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
Additionally, didnât she plead the generic Democratic defense of believing faulty intel whenever the subject was raised?
She couldn’t have. Bob Graham told her to read the NIE and she didn’t bother to. And Bob Graham is no DFH yet he voted against the Iraq war because of the NIE. If Hillary had listened to Bob Graham, she would be President today.
The Grand Panjandrum
It was addressed. Clinton’s failure was that she could never admit that SHE made an error in judgment. But that is old news. Obama won. I will make a prediction: No one who voted for the Iraq War will ever be elected to the White House unless they admit it was a mistake to vote for that piece of legislation. We now have too much evidence that everyone in Congress who voted for the war either supported it without reservation, or were hedging their bets and voted for it so they wouldn’t appear weak on Defense. That anyone who voted for this goddamned atrocity in Iraq should be in the White House–who hasn’t apologized for being wrong–would be a crime against this nations already beleaguered honor.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
She never gave a very good explanation of why she voted the way she did.
True. Maybe she thought her vote spoke for itself and that it was a good idea executed poorly, I don’t know. Being a Senator from NY. The fact that she is DLC .. which most of them are warmongering hawks .. though I believe Bob Graham was DLC too .. interestingly enough
kwAwk
Itis part of the Obama worshiper mythology that Clinton didn’t address her Iraq War vote.
She didn’t apologize for it, but she most certainly did address it.
Jackmormon
She also claimed that she believed that the President needed the full authority of a Congressional vote to negotiate at the UN. This argument pissed me off more than her wavering non-apology about the intelligence did because it’s another claim for massive, inappropriate executive power.
It’s like saying “I acted correctly in giving him a blank check, but he’s the asshole for running off and depositing it for $100 million.”
kwAwk
And what she also said was that there are certain times for the benefit of the country’s national security that the President needs to have the trust of the Congress and be taken at his word. I believe she also said that said trust was abused.
Hillary supporters would rather have blamed George W. Bush for the War in Iraq, but Obama supporters would rather have blamed any democrat outside of Obama.
DougJ
I agree.
SGEW
That’s some wide brush bullshit right there.
O! Shall we ever heal from the primaries?
El Cid
You stoopit libruls have totally forgotten your history.
Bill Clinton destroyed the economy and the U.S. military and then let terrorists attack us on 9/11/2001. Then George Bush’s son stepped in for a while and KeptUsSafe and then he created TEH SURGE to fix Iraq totally after somebody or other invaded and then right after that Barack Obama stole the Presidency with his ACORN shock troops and Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Chuck Schumer made the government give away free homes to black people and after that the economy collapsed and Americans broke out teabags to defend themselves.
Jim
It isn’t just the media that think the Bush administration never happened. The Clintons, the couple (though especially Bill) and the campaign, always seemed to me to be campaigning as if it were 2000 all over again.
kwAwk
It was DougJ who brought this whole thing up, so please look in the mirror ye Obamabots.
Brautigan
El Cid, as he often does, wins the thread.
El Cid
@Brautigan: I have never, ever posted any comment on this website nor have I ever even encountered it, and anyone who says otherwise is a librul Northern Aggressionist mythmonger.
SGEW
@kwAwk: Healing from the primaries does not involve never referencing the political issues that were at play. I was speaking more of overcoming the enormous butthurt that was involved, and avoiding such heated and disparaging terms as “Obamabot” or “worshipper mythology” that were so widespread during the campaign. Using them now just make you sound like some freeping troll. Righto? Cheers.
However, so saying, I believe that “Paultard” is still ok. And THIS IS EXCELENT NEWS!11 FOR MCCAIN11! will probably always be acceptable.
Mnemosyne
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
And people did vote for someone else. That’s the point — the media let it go, but there were a LOT of primary voters who weren’t satisfied with that answer and/or the original decision and thus didn’t vote for her.
Like it or not, her decision to stand by her Iraq vote hurt her campaign.
kwAwk
And I would say that you don’t see how Clinton got away with not addressing her Iraq vote falls right in line with the same disparaging language you speak of.
You may not have liked the answer that she did give, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t address it. Saying that is part of the mythology of the campaign is a fairly accurate statement in my view.
Kelly
“For moderate voters clinging to some faith in government, the question over the past two decades of mostly two-party rule was: Canât Washington do anything?”
I seem to recall at some point in the last two decades we ran budget surpluses. We even did it appropriately, when the economy was booming. Please remind me, who was in charge at the time?
satyr9us
Uhh, kwAwk:
The fact that she didn’t apologize for it = the fact that she didn’t adequately address it.
Please support your point by pointing to at least one Obama-supporting Democrat who professes that the #1 cretin responsible for the Iraq War is someone other than George W. Bush. Nobody? Huh.
Immediately following Bush in culpability are several members of his administration, followed by a mostly mendacious press corps, all the way down the line to the millions of American voters who cheered along or failed to effectively halt the travesty. Yes, the blood is on pretty much all of our hands, and it remains quite icky. Most Americans I know are deeply sorry about the whole thing. Somewhere in the mix are the Congressional Democrats who abetted this disastrous misstep, and somewhere in that mix is our current Secretary of State. It’s just where we are, plain and simple.
Let’s try to distinguish the contentious language of the primaries from the discussion of the Iraq invasion, considerable overlap notwithstanding, can we?
“Obamabots” is a term of derision that had a certain currency during the primaries, as shorthand for someone who was obviously (as far as the user of the term was concerned) not mindful in their support of Obama, which term could then be gleefully extended to anyone who was favorable toward Obama for whatever reason, yes? And there were other such terms, each of them shorthand for a particular argument for or against a given candidate? I guess that’s why so many commenters in this thread keep using terms like “Hildebeast”, right? Oh, wait… silly me.
You’re not upset about that, because that isn’t happening, because Democrats are basically over the primaries, except you’re not. You’re upset that so many people, such as the people here on this thread, refuse to be over the decision to invade Iraq. The fact that that decision affected the course of the primaries means that whenever Iraq is mentioned, it’s time to bust out those primary-holdover shorthand terms of derision, insisting that others in the discussion started it.
Question, krAwk: if you regard the outcome of the Democratic primaries to be a greater travesty than the decision to invade Iraq, are you sure you’re a Democrat?
asiangrrlMN
@satyr9us: Thank you. I was about to unleash a can of whupass over this, but now I don’t have to because you said it very nicely.
I will add that there is plenty of blame to go around for the Iraq war debacle. I knew there were no WMDs at the time (and yes, I was saying so), so why the hell didn’t our congress people? I hold everyone who voted yes to go to war culpable to a certain extent. I actually hold Dick Cheney most culpable, but that is neither here nor there.
Despite all that, had Clinton won the primaries and had been given the Democratic nod, I would have voted for her. Did you vote for Obama, krAwk, or were you too busy sulking?
D.F. Manno
Bullshit. The anti-war movement is the only segment of society not responsible for the war. That it could not stop the juggernaut of the Bush administration, the complicit media, and a large percentage of the American people in their rush to war does not indict the movement.
If you’re arguing that everybody is to blame, then you’re washing the blood off the hands of the people who actually prosecuted the war. If everyone is to blame, then no one is responsible.
mclaren
What is this “Iraq war”?
I am not familiar with this “Iraq war” of which you speak, stranger. There appears to be no news coverage of it.
kwAwk
My point would be that I find the notion that there are times that the people in Congress need to trust the President to be a rational argument.
Hillary’s decision to entrust Bush with this power was not a command upon George W. Bush to invade Iraq. It was giving him the authority once he had worked with the UN, which he did commit to in every manner, to invade Iraq.
The decision to invade Iraq was made by one man alone. The only man who had the power to make that decision. The President of the United States. There were a lot of factors at work in the build up to the Iraq War, but not the least of which was the Democrats losing control of the Senate in the 2002 elections and losing all ability to moderate George W. Bush’s decisions.
Anybody who claims that they knew before the Iraq invasion that Iraq had no chemical weapons is being disingenuous. You may have correctly guessed it but you didn’t know it. Even the inspectors on the ground didn’t know that which is why they were asking for more time for inspections. Bush however couldn’t be bothered to wait to find out, one because he knew that more inspection time could result in the loss of his justification for war and two because summer was coming and staging the invasion in 130 degree summer heat was not a viable option.
I have a suspicion that in the next couple of years we’ll face some form of crisis, either with Russia, or North Korea or Iran that will lead a lot of you to want the Republicans in Congress to show the same type of trust in Obama that Clinton showed in Bush. Time has shown that Bush wasn’t a worthwhile recipient of that trust, but that doesn’t mean that the people in Congress who don’t have access to the same detailed intelligence should not be willing to trust the President.
The violation of that trust rests on the shoulders of the President. Bush knew he was violating the spirit of the authority given to him by the Congress, and choose to do it anyways. To now come up with some form of litmus test for Democrats because of how they voted on Iraq, or their willingness to apologize for such vote is absurd. Either you believe Bush at fault or you don’t.
To believe that no one who voted for this war will ever be President is quite a conceit. It is a lot like saying that you knew Iraq didn’t have WMD before the war. It is something you can’t possibly know.
In my opinion Clinton’s stand on her vote for Iraq was the most principled stand of any of the candidates outside of perhaps Kucinich who actually DID vote against the AUMF. It would have been easy for Clinton to simply apologize like the others to curry the favor of many in the base. She didn’t do so. It certainly was a tougher stand than Obama’s claim that he would have voted against it if he could have.
satyr9us
kwAwk, sorry for misspelling your handle above.
We seem to be in perfect agreement that George W. Bush is culprit #1 here.
Hey, do we know that the Federated States of Micronesia are not in possession of dubya-emdees? Seriously, has anyone completed an inspection? Quick, let’s pass a resolution!
If it were a foregone conclusion that the President should always have authority to go to war — or, conversely, if it were a foregone conclusion that the President should never have authority to go to war — we would not have a Consitutional framework whereby the President takes his case before Congress to obtain authorization.
133 U.S. Congressional Reps and 23 Senators were capable of discerning that President Bush’s case for authorization was not valid, and so they voted against the resolution. Your opinion, as stated here, is that they were incorrect to do so, that they should have voted with then-Senator Clinton to approve that resolution, for only through the passage of time could they have obtained the information one would need to know otherwise.
Folks could argue all day, and they do, about whether Bush had already exhibited by October 2002 the signs of jingoistic zealotry and other species of poor reasoning that should disqualify a sitting leader from being granted magnificent extra-Constitutional powers by a Congress Constitutionally bound to oversee such things. Personally, I am dumbfounded every single time someone claims that they honestly did not know, in October 2002, that President Bush planned on invading Iraq, facts be damned… but that is Clinton’s argument, and that is your argument, so I’ll assume good faith on her part and yours — I just won’t concede that your reasoning is sound. (A lot of Americans, who were not in positions of leadership, went right along — and a lot of those Americans now acknowledge, in hindsight, that they should have instead gone along with the people who then claimed they knew better and were since proven correct.)
I don’t know about a litmus test. I just wasn’t satisfied with Clinton’s explanation, and a lot of other people weren’t satisfied either. We had a better option so we went with that.
Here’s where we really differ: it wasn’t just Bush. This is a democracy, sort of. If our generation doesn’t figure out how to go about keeping a power-drunk oligarchy from leading our nation into a quagmire of its choosing, a problem left unsolved by generations preceding us (see also: Vietnam), the next generation will suffer this crisis all over again. What guarantee do we have that the next such crisis won’t undo us altogether?
satyr9us
D.F. Manno, you’re under the impression that my comments “indict the [antiwar] movement?” Fascinating. Moral equivalency arguments just are not my thing, at all.
As an Iraq vet, who thus had no say at the time, who enlisted when Bill Clinton was President: with all due thanks and admiration to anyone who marched in a protest or wrote an op-ed in opposition or whatever, nobody’s feeling of righteousness changes the fact that the invasionists had their way. So now the consequences of that invasion have become our American experience. Mere reality.