# WTF? Bush calling critics revisionist historians!?!? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 17, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348 "2003-06-17T00:59:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/61 "2003-06-17T16:21:45Z")
Scylla: I didn’t misquote you. I quoted from the question to which you were responding and the answer you gave, and to which you are now weaseling. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/62 "2003-06-17T16:26:50Z")
It’s a misquote, deliberate and disingenous to falsely attribute to me a position I have not made. I did not say all the things you put in quotations and attribute to me. That’s a misquote. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/63 "2003-06-17T16:43:35Z")
> [@](#): > > **Gary Kumquat** : > > Or do you really just want to bandy around partisan soundbites and black and white ideology? No, I’d prefer to continue pointing out real revisionism when I see it. Anybody who claims Bush’s war was just a continuation of Clinton policies is either deliberately dishonest or an idiot. Do you have some example where I’ve bandied about ‘partisan soundbites’ or ‘black and white ideology’? ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/64 "2003-06-17T16:49:19Z")
I said : > [@](#): > > let me ask you a serious question, though Scylla - of those who in the past said they believed that SH had WoMD, how many of them: > > 1. Claimed that there was imminent threat to the US from that? > > 2. Claimed that the level of risk to US citizens was so high that it required us to invade another country in order to protect ourselves? > > 3. Claimed that he was ‘months’ away from having Nukes ready to use? > > note, too, please, the real difference between ‘having a weapons program’ and “having a weapons program, having weapons of biological, chemical and nuclear capability, having the means to use said weapons against another sovereign nation half the world away”. to which **Scylla** replied: > [@](#): > > Wring: > > Oh I dunno. Off the top of my head Congress, Blix, Khoffii Annan, Gore, Clinton and every Democrat in 1998 as well as the entire UN. But now you seem to be qualifying your statement as a claim that Dems etc saw SH as a threat. Which, frankly makes your comment to me here, absurd, since I asked I direct, specific question. I agree that generally folks saw SH as a ‘threat’, bad guy, folks’d be better off if he were gone. But I asked a very, very specific set of questions. If the answer was “well, no one said those things” then that’s what your answer **should** have been. But you opted for something else entirely. If you did **not** intend to claim that those folks you listed actually said the things that I posited, then flat out, you shouldn’t have posted them as a reply to my comment. ---
**Author:** ![carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrot)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/65 "2003-06-17T16:54:07Z")
I’ve got it! **Scylla** is actually doing a tongue-in-cheek performance art piece in the style of the Bush administration! Oh, bravo! Encore! ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/66 "2003-06-17T16:54:55Z")
The weaseling continues, I see. Not to mention the typical **Scylla** tactic of attempting to divert everyone’s attention from his bullshit claims by trumping up claims of foul misdeeds by his opponents. To refresh everyone’s recollection, **wring** asked: > [@](#): > > let me ask you a serious question, though **Scylla** - of those who in the past said they believed that SH had WoMD, how many of them: > > 1. Claimed that there was imminent threat to the US from that? > > 2. Claimed that the level of risk to US citizens was so high that it required us to invade another country in order to protect ourselves? > > 3. Claimed that he was ‘months’ away from having Nukes ready to use? To which **Scylla** replied: > [@](#): > > Wring: > > Oh I dunno. Off the top of my head Congress, Blix, Khoffii Annan, Gore, Clinton and every Democrat in 1998 as well as the entire UN. Thus, Scylla asserted, just as **I** said: > [@](#): > > that “[Hans] Blix, Khoffii Annan, Gore, Clinton and every Democrat in 1998 as well as the entire UN” claimed Saddam Hussein’s WMD’s were “an imminent threat to the US,” “that the level of risk to US citizens was so high that it required us to invade another country in order to protect ourselves,” and “that [Saddam] was ‘months’ away from having Nukes ready to use” . . . So, once again, where’s your evidence? Prove those people you identified asserted those things. Or retract the charge as the complete bullshit that it appears to be. On preview: Damn you, **wring**! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/67 "2003-06-17T16:59:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by carrot \* > I’ve got it! **Scylla** is actually doing a tongue-in-cheek performance art piece in the style of the Bush administration! > > Oh, bravo! Encore! \*\* **carrot** , you just made my day with that quip. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/68 "2003-06-17T17:12:37Z")
Wow, another classic **Scylla-gism**. Used to be months between the good ones, now there has been two in just about as many days. With these guys, either Clinton was an ineffectual wuss because he didn’t do anything, or, now, Bush’s invasion and overthrow of the Iraqi government was the very same as Clinton’s enforcement of no-fly zones and “lobbing” of cruise missiles. Damn the reasoning, full speed ahead. I might support Bush too, were I so thick headed as to not be able to discriminate between such acts. “Babes!” Gotta love it. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/69 "2003-06-17T17:13:32Z")
It’s almost sad to see ad-hoc rationalization causing such strained weaseling. Sort of like a dog trying to rationalize why its master beats him. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/70 "2003-06-17T17:51:09Z")
**Scylla** , you’re coming dangerously close to badly embarassing yourself when you cite Fox News in conjunction with the weapons of mass destruction question. Here’s Fox’s track record to date as modified from [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=187112): March 10: [Possible mobile weapons lab found](http://www.landbou.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1346312,00.html): citing Fox news reports. March 17: [Iraq Arming Troops With Chemical Weapons](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81303,00.html) March 24: [U.S. captures Iraqi chemical-weapons plant](http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31679): reported by Jerusalem Post; confirmed by Fox News. March 24: [Caution on chemical arms reports](http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030324/80/dw5o2.html): _citing the erroneous WMD report by Fox News._ April 10: [Troops Find Possible Evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/890329/posts) April 12: [Fox News passes on report of plutonium found outside of Baghdad](http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm335575.html) May 6: [U.S. Officials ‘Confident’ of Weapons Lab Find](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86068,00.html) May 28: [U.S. Confident Saddam Had Mobile WMD Lab](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,87997,00.html) June 13: [White House Backs Bush Assertions on Iraq’s WMDs](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89402,00.html) I’m sure many of those links are growing stale now, but it’s important to point out that many of those articles are from other media sources which merely mention the Fox reports. The Fox website no longer has some of those reports online, although they do have articles articles from the same date. Perhaps I’m just not looking hard enough, but I have yet to find a Fox News retraction/correction page. So I can’t yet accuse Fox of revisionism, in the sense that they are correcting themselves. The jury is also still out on concealment of error and piss-poor reporting. However, Fox also posted an opinion piece from [Gene Healy of the Cato Institute](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89152,00.html) last Friday, which concluded: > [@](#): > > Sometime in the coming months, U.S. forces may well happen upon some VX canisters or anthrax stockpiles, and the administration will breathe a sigh of relief. Such a discovery may change the media’s focus, but it can’t change the facts: This war did not avert a serious threat to the United States. Instead, it may have created new ones. Somehow, that one must have slipped under the radar, because it represents a position quite different from Fox’s usual party line. Okay, all that having been said, I need to clearly state that I’m not accusing you of making a [_Fox paus_](http://www.stuffiveheard.com/error400.html), **Scylla**. Nor do I have a particular problem with the article from which you quoted, except for the bait-and-switch qualification that **bnorton** pointed out. I’m merely warning you that Fox appears to be in a position very similar to that of the President himself in that they are both going to need some serious vindication if their sterling reputations are to be upheld. I recommend you back up any assertion you find on Fox News regarding WMD or the defense of the stated reasons for invasion by checking other sources. They report bullshit. You decide if it’s worth passing on, because it’s your reputation on the line around here. Fox’s reputation is in the gutter where it belongs. ---
**Author:** ![carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrot)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/71 "2003-06-17T17:54:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\ ***carrot** , you just made my day with that quip. 😃 \*\* When I come upon such genius, I must acknowledge it. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/72 "2003-06-17T18:09:33Z")
Wring: Insisting on a literal interpretation of a generalized response is pretty crappy of you. But if you want to play that way, fine. You win. I retract my statement. Clearly every Democrat in the world, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hans Blix Khoffi Anann, and the UN did not really and actually literally claim that: 1. there was imminent threat to the US 2. the level of risk to US citizens was so high that it required us to invade another country in order to protect ourselves 3. Claimed that he was ‘months’ away from having Nukes ready to use Furthermore, I will apologize for having tried to perpetrate such an egregious falsehood upon you. I will no longer weasel and pretend that I was being anything but absolutely literal with my statement. Your dogged spirited determination has found me out, and I confess to perpetrating a knowing falsehood. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/73 "2003-06-17T18:24:55Z")
Sofa King: > [@](#): > > I’m merely warning you that Fox appears to be in a position very similar to that of the President himself in that they are both going to need some serious vindication if their sterling reputations are to be upheld. I recommend you back up any assertion you find on Fox News regarding WMD or the defense of the stated reasons for invasion by checking other sources. Indeed. Perhaps I should check CNN or the New York Times. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/74 "2003-06-17T18:25:41Z")
You know, I have pondered the numerous threads that have erupted on these boards that relate to the war. Many of them are phrased in a past tense, as if the war is over. I realize that Bush has declared victory, but I don’t recognize the victory when 50 flag covered U.S. coffins have been pulled out of the “non-war” zone in the past 45 days. At this rate, we will lose 400 men and women a year in this “non-war”. It will take only 90 more days to lose more men and women than we lost in the invasion. I also have noticed the rates of guerilla attacks increasing in the past few weeks. Bush declared victory, but we have suffered about 33% as many casualties as we did during the invasion. In addition, we have failed to capture Saddam Hussein and recover any weapons of mass destruction. We have also, apparently, not suppressed the Saddam loyalists who are killing our troops every week. Has anyone ever pondered that the sudden collapse of Iraqi resistance around Baghdad (remember, it took us half of the invasion time to secure some of the smaller southern cities in Iraq) was actually a tactic employed by Saddam? Our troops were driving into the downtown district pretty much unopposed. Also, the territories most loyal to Saddam folded relatively quickly. IMHO, this means that they intentionally went underground, with their weapons (WMD if they do exist), to fight a guerilla war. I hope this is not the case, but I suspect it is. How long will it take before the fear and anger start gripping our troops? History has shown that when troops have a devoted purpose and are making progress, they have much higher morale. However, when they have to sit by and let militias take pot shots, they get quickly disgruntled and the likelihood of tragedies increases (i.e. Vietnam). This includes the accidental shooting of non-combatants (something that is a reality in a guerilla war) that will do little but raise support for anti-american forces. Now, lets say we don’t practice these co-called revisionist philosophies that Mr. bush espouses. And, let’s assume that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat. Now, he is still not captured AND those weapons have not been recovered. Does anyone here actually believe that the Iraqi military posed a threat to the U.S.? I doubt it. All we have accomplished so far, is to dismantle the official Iraqi military that did not have the capability to project power anywhere outside the immediate region. In reality, the threat was allegedly posed by an evil dictator (who still exists), who allegedly had weapons of mass destrcution (which if we believe the tripe, he still has) and was going to give them to terrorists (which he still could). Thus, we have accomplished nothing related to our primary objective- Minimizing danger to America. Therefore, the war is far from over. I personally find it disgusting that while U.S. troops are dying, Bush is moving on to his next political step and pushing the “great” economy on the road to re-election. Finish the job Mr. Bush. Yes, you may have won over the hearts and minds of the ignorant masses, but you still have a moral and ethical duty to not only the citizens of the countries you have invaded and destabilized, but you have a duty to a our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who are currently dying for your agenda. Finish the damn job and bring the boys(girls) back home! ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/75 "2003-06-17T18:29:51Z")
Minty: > [@](#): > > The weaseling continues, I see. Not to mention the typical Scylla tactic of attempting to divert everyone’s attention from his bullshit claims by trumping up claims of foul misdeeds by his opponents. If you are going to call me names and insist on literalism you should expect to be held to the same standard. You crafted your post to misquote me in a deceitful and innacurate manner. Anyone relying on your post would beleive that I actually said the things you quoted me as saying. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/76 "2003-06-17T18:35:58Z")
how dare I intrepret your words as written. gosh what ever was I thinking. yea. **Scylla** - you know better. Had you **meant** something other than what you fucking posted, you should have indicated so. You accused **Minty** of misattributing your words, when you here admit that you didn’t mean it literally. then guess what ? in a fucking written medium, it’s up to the writer to make that clear. You failed to do so, got called on it, and now want all of us to be responsible for actually believing that you meant what you posted. and spare me your ‘oh, how maligned am I’ attitude. The point I made was that **even if** other folks ‘thought’ SH probably had WoMD, they were **not** certain to the degree that they claimed that we were in imminent danger here in the US, that SH was about to have Nukes, and that we **had** to invade **right fucking then** in order to protect ourselves, which of course was what the Bush admin was claiming. So, in short your dodge that ‘everybody thought’ SH had weapons, so if Bush was wrong about it, so was everyone else is simply the latest dodge. Everyone else may have **thought** it was possible/probably, but NONE of them claimed that launching a full scaled invasion was the proper response. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/77 "2003-06-17T18:50:37Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Revtim \* > \*\*It’s almost sad to see ad-hoc rationalization causing such strained weaseling. Sort of like a dog trying to rationalize why its master beats him. \*\* Aw, that’s kind of mean imagery. How about a dog working to get peanut butter off the roof of his mouth. The question has to be asked - at what point do the mental gymnastics become too tiring? At what point do the fanatics give in? ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/78 "2003-06-17T19:01:12Z")
What **wring** said. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/79 "2003-06-17T19:40:28Z")
Damn, **Lissa** - that’s some pretty ugly imagery, even for the Pit! ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348/80 "2003-06-17T19:44:03Z")
Wring: > [@](#): > > how dare I intrepret your words as written. gosh what ever was I thinking. yea Interpretation was what I wanted, not literalism. I had hoped that someone of your intelligence would read what I wrote and say to themselves: "Hmm. Obviously that is not literally true. In fact it is obviously and demonstrably untrue. Surely Scylla must have known this. What then did he mean? Maybe he meant that lots of people have been taking a pretty hard line with Iraq for some time, and maybe the fact that he is asserting that all these parties did all these specific things that I ask about is a way of telling me by hyperbole that my specific request is too exclusive." That’s what I figured you’d think. Instead you’ve chosen to insist on an absolutely literal interpretation and demand a cite. Any suggestion that I make of not being 100% literal is weaseling, and next thing you know it’s another hijack bringing out three of my usual stooges, Minty, Xeno, and Hentor. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wtf-bush-calling-critics-revisionist-historians/182348.md?page=5)