Who links to me?
Perhaps unintentionally Glenn Greenwald in his latest polemic acknowledges the lefts Bush Lied people died meme is a lie.
Once the U.S. finally extricates itself from the Iraqi disaster, a comprehensive public accounting is critical. While much attention has been paid to the pre-war misinformation disseminated by the government and the media, the post-invasion deceit has been worse — much worse. There was, at least, a reasonable question about whether Saddam had WMDs. Nobody knew the answer to that question for certain one way or the other prior to the war.
Of course he thinks Bush lied and committed far more serious “crimes” after the war started but I will take what I can get. I wonder what Glenns friends at Daily Kos and Crooks and Liars think of that statement?
**Update**
Glenn has replied in the comments section. Here is his reply:
There is nothing “unintentional†about it. I have never used the word “lie†to decribe the administration’s pre-war WMD claims and have explained before why that is the case.
I’ve made the point a few times in the last week alone that screaming hyesterically every day about the terrorism threat trivializes the threat, just as exploiting and over-using anti-semitism accusations renders the accusation empty and meaningless.
and his acolytes are taking him to task for it on his site. Please see the comments section for Glenn’s complete reply.
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There is nothing “unintentional” about it. I have never used the word “lie” to decribe the administration’s pre-war WMD claims and have explained before why that is the case.
I’ve made the point a few times in the last week alone that screaming hyesterically every day about the terrorism threat trivializes the threat, just as exploiting and over-using anti-semitism accusations renders the accusation empty and meaningless.
I believe the same thing is true for the accusation that someone is “lying.” To me, that ought to be reserved for times when (a) the accused has made a factually false statement which (b) they know with reasonable certainty to be false at the time they made it.
In my view, (b) is precarious with regard to the Bush administration’s pre-war state of mind concerning the existence of WMDs. I am far from convinced that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush believed conclusively that Saddam had no WMDs. I think they convinced themselves with their “Saddam = Hitler” rhetoric that he did have them, even as the evidence mounted that he didn’t.
That makes those pre-war claims many things - reckelss, manipulative, reflective of extremely poor judgment. But I just don’t think that, strictly speaking, it’s a “lie” the way that their post-invasion claims are lies. And I think it’s important to speak strictly with such accusations, lest they lose their meaning.
Not everything that is bad and wrong is a “lie.” To question whether something is accurately characterized as a “lie” is not to defend it. I hope those propositions are clear.
Comment by Glenn Greenwald � August 17, 2006 @ 8:07 am
Oy. As Steyn has said, there were no bad reasons for taking out Saddam.
Regardless of public statements etc, I assume and hope that the primary reason for going into Iraq was the same as why we went to Iwo Jima: air power. Now when we have to plaster Iran or Syria (which, of course, we should have done already; faster, please!), our boys won’t have to fly off the Kitty Hawk; they’ll have Baghdad Int’l, convenient and centrally located.
Comment by Doc � August 17, 2006 @ 6:43 pm
[…] Rick over at The Real Ugly American has what is actually both a funny and a sad admission from Glenn Greenwald. It's funny because it pretty well exactly mirrors what a lot of people have been trying to tell others - Bush did not lie, there was debatable evidence and intelligence to lend credence to the WMD claims. What's sad is that neither Rick nor I thinks Greenwald actually did it intentionally. […]
Pingback by Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Reasonable Doubt � August 17, 2006 @ 9:11 pm