Right, becuase Congress let him. Note that I was responding specifically to this from JC, as to why he think it might be marginally good to get this story out there again (my emphasis):
Now, if Congress needs to better inform itself of these facts so it doesn’t repeat the same mistake, then fine. But Americans are smarter than Congress on these matters, it would seem. It never hurts to remind us, but I have no fear that Americans are going to lend support for an attack on Iran-- as the polls show.
Anyway, it’s old news and the newspapers seem to be treating it as such. It wasn’t on the front page of my paper-- I think it made page 17 or something like that.
Oh, I’m sure when it comes down to it, we won’t because we can’t. (Could have in 2002, just maybe, but now we done shot our bolt.) But if the Admin doesn’t want to, why does the Iran Directorate exist?
The Dems voted as well.
They share responsibility. They abdicated their responsibility because they were afraid of appearing “soft on terror.” Their quest for political expediency is partly to blame.
Parties and branches are supposed to check and balance one another. It did not happen.
The decision to go to war was made an integral part of the 2002 mid-term campaigns.
Perhaps the WH has come to regret their 2002 decision “to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign”
'Cause more recently GWB said said:
"And the reason why is [I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061108-2.html)."
John, could you come up some later data to support your assertion that the American people were not fooled by this intelligence nonsense? Your poll of Oct. 7, 2002 comes from a time when the product had barely been rolled out. How about presenting something from March 2003, or at least after Powell’s UN speech. It takes time for faked up intelligence to work its way into the public perception, and your early poll data doesn’t allow for that.
Didn’t listen to whom? He didn’t have to worry about listening to Congress last time because **they were falling over themselves to agree with him. ** So, like I said, if Congress needs to be reminded of their responsibility to listen to us, then I’m all for it. But we don’t need to be reminded of anything.
You still haven’t backed up your assertion that America wasn’t “buying the link to terrorism and they weren’t buying the WMD talk” with anything besides a poll taken at an irrelevant time.
What? How else can I back up what the American people think other than using poll data? And why is that time irrelevant-- I purposely chose the time immediately before the AUMF vote to point out that Congress was out of sync with the American people. They should have made Bush’s use of force contingent on getting UNSC approval. Americans did not buy the assertion that Iraq was a threat to US, but Congress did. Americans didn’t think invading Iraq would make us safer from terrorism, but Congress did.
Of course, at that time, Congress had been steeped in dubious intelligence, and America hadn’t. Say what you will about congress, but if you want to demonstrate how savvy the American public is, you need to show some data from a time after they were exposed to the contagion.
While the linked story shows a declining support for the war it also shows that during the critical ‘GO’ period the administration had managed to get the public behind the concept of the war.
In effect, John, this is marketing as politics.
Get Congress on board with manipulated intel and political posturing.
Use that to pre-sell the idea of the war.
Use intel and Powell to create the war support in the public.
Go to war then declare “we have to stay or we lose”.
And, while I agree that a full scale war with Iran would be a foolish act it’s clear to me that, at this point, the administration would certianly like a confrontation with Iran and is taking the steps to pre-sell such an event should the opportunity arise.
Toss in the fact that Vladimir Putin is now posturing in support of Iran, at least in a small way, while decrying the administrations actions in Iraq and this one is a much more difficult sell.
But don’t fool yourself that they don’t want to. And don’t believe that deft marketing can’t make the American public believe black is white. Lord knows we go through that every election cycle when fairly ordinary men are hailed as heroes and patriots/
Yes, after an invasion, there is a natural tendency to rally around the president.
So, we nip this in the bud at step one, which is what I’ve been saying throughout this thread. I see no evidence that Congress is getting behind an invasion of Iran.
Could be. What do you think the odds are that they will be able to pre-sell that to Congress? I’d put it about ZERO. If Bush wants to make some air strikes, he’s going to do that with or without permission from Congress, just as all the other recent presidents have done. And nothing Congress does is going to stop him.
I’m not fooling myself about anything. If Bush wants to make some air attacks against Iran, he’s going to do it. He doesn’t need Congress on board for that. If he wants to invade Iran, he does needs Congress to approve, and they are not going to do that.
I see. So if GeeDuh merely wants to snap off a few air raids, sort of bitch-slap Iran around a bit, he doesn’t need approval, but if he wants to invade Iran, and do something really pretty serious, he does. Well, that’s certainly a relief. Gotta admit, for a second there, I was a bit worried.
Hey, I’m merely stating the facts as I see them. If you have evidence that my facts are incorrect, then I’d love to hear it. You can “worry” all you want, but that doesn’t change the facts.
I hope you’re right, and I’m wrong. I hope that in six months, you can resurrect these posts, dance and gambol about, singing “Dummy, dummy, 'luc, wrong again, I was right, you were wrong, neener neener.”
Nothing could make me happier. I’m a pessimist, John, I hate being right.
I’m not sure what specifically you’re referring to. I’ve said in many different threads that it wouldn’t surprise me much if Bush lobbed a cruise missile or two at Iran, or ordered a few airstrikes. I don’t think it’s likely, but it isn’t out of the question. But an actual invasion, aimed at “regime change”? Not a chance.