Jonah Goldberg: Bush bashers should get facts straight before crying 'liar'

Union Leader ^ | 6/30/03 | Jonah Goldberg

[leadpenny]

I love this guy. Jonah Goldberg is one of the few reasons to ever watch anything on CNN.

Maybe the only reason.

[doosee]

I love this guy. Jonah Goldberg is one of the few reasons to ever watch anything on CNN.

Add Lou Dobbs, Kudlow and sometimes Cramer, and as a bonus they have added two knockout newsbabes. Dont know the names... Other than that, zilch..

[TomGuy]

an opportunistic Democratic Presidential candidate or batty Bush-hating journalist

They would rather play "gotcha" than be right. After all, even if the "gotcha" later turns out to be wrong, the doubt was created and damage was done. Mission accomplished.

[MEG33]

Good column.I am content to let the candidates rant and make fools of themselves.

[Savage Beast]

"it's a monstrously stupid argument — and usually deliberately so."

Of course it is. It is merely yet one more example (of countless) of how immoral, dishonest "Liberal"/Democrat leaders manipulate the fools who follow them. The Democrat Party: the party of fools and scoundrels.

[Captain Kirk]

Goldberg used to hate Clinton now he cites him as a credible source on WMD! Politics makes strange bedfellows.

[IncPen]

Goldberg used to hate Clinton now he cites him as a credible source on WMD! Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Uh, I think he was using to illustrate the hypocrisy of the left...

[Captain Kirk]

I thought that the question on the table was whether there are WMD's not to "score points" against hypocrites. Citing Liar Bill Clinton as a credible source (remember his false claims about genocide in Kosovo) is just a cheap debating trick and does not address this question.

[TomB]

I noted this on another thread:

"Actually this brings up a good point. Assuming Clinton was also lying about WMDs and knew the CIA had made up evidence, how many milliseconds would it take for him to come on TV, biting his lower lip, and tell the world how he was duped and how Bush lying or being duped too?"

[Susannah]

WMD is still a question on the table. IMO, the author is addressing the "Bush knew/Bush lied" rantings.

" The basic problem with this analysis is it requires that Bush knew the truth but said the opposite. After all, a lie is only a lie if you know the truth and then say something very different. So in this case, Bush needed to know something nobody had an inkling of. "~ J. Goldberg

[Captain Kirk]

That quote is incredible double-talk. By the way, I do not believe that Dubya just that he stretched to truth beyond the breaking point.

[Captain Kirk]

That should be "I don't believe Dubya lied just that...

[IncPen]

The point with Clinton is that he can't get off the stage, and says idiotic things that nobody calls him on.

If the leftis going to skewer Bush on a charge of inventing claims of WMD, it seems logical to point out that the left's heroes (Clinton included) also believed there were WMDs in Iraq

It's not a matter of scoring points. It is a matter of establishing the ground rules for debate. If your opponents are going to disingenuously accuse you of lying, you need to point out that you're using the same assumptions that they used to come to the same conclusions

Clintonism thrives on the public inattention to detail

[Captain Kirk]

In that case, a plague on both your houses. Most Americans, and increasingly most conservativesk, are not interested in these petty partisan squabbles. They want answers, not gamesmanship.

[sinkspur]

They want answers, not gamesmanship.

Every other intelligence service in the world, including the French, insisted that there were WMDs. Every single one of them.

Were they all "gaming"?

[js1138]

More important, just this week we learned that an Iraqi scientist was ordered by Uday Hussein to keep vital parts and documents for a nuclear weapons program under a rose bush in his garden.

Rose bush documents, pumpkin papers... Interesting.

[Captain Kirk]

The French admitted that Iraq had WMD in the past but they did not claim they currently had them.

Regardless, it is rather amusing to see a Freeper citing the French government as a legitimate source. I guess the desperation of the pro-war freepers (citing Clinton, France, and the UN as credible authorities!) knows no bounds.

[sinkspur]

Regardless, it is rather amusing to see a Freeper citing the French government as a legitimate source. I guess the desperation of the pro-war freepers (citing Clinton, France, and the UN as credible authorities!) knows no bounds.

No. What's funny is that you seem to think everybody in the world was wrong but you!

[Captain Kirk]

I am indeed sorry, Sinkspur. I guess I need to model myself after a thoughtful, nuanced person like you who rejects knee-jerks partisanship.