The Difference Between a Scumbag Like Ron Fournier and... "H.W." and "Dubya."

I have a very... um... nuanced view of George W. Bush.

In many ways I blame him as much as either Clinton or Obama for the steep and swift decline of our American society.

Oh... true... Obama is far worse... and as for Clinton I could go on and on... but Bush - like his father before him - often stabbed America in the back under the false flag of supposed conservatism. We had every right to expect so much better from him.

I could go on and on about "Pappy Bush." He was the first American President who made me ashamed to be an American. (Via allowing Saddam to continue slaughtering the Kurds long after we had "won" the first Gulf War; also via his "Read My Lips" lie.)

My friend... remember... Pappy Bush was the Republican face of anti-Reaganism PRIOR to "George Herbert Walker" accepting the number two spot on the 1980 GOP ticket; furthermore, the moment "Pappy" was "hired" as president in his own right after campaigning on a platform of basically continuing the Reagan legacy... well... Bush stabbed Reaganites in the back and returned to form as an anti-Reaganite GOP "establishmentarian."

But, folks... fair is fair! And the following essay written by the universally respected Laurence H. Silberman and carried in today's Wall Street Journal bears your reading... and acknowledgment... and... your passing on of the facts.

*  *  *  *  *

In recent weeks, I have heard former Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier on Fox News twice asserting, quite offhandedly, that President George W. Bush “lied us into war in Iraq.”

I found this shocking.

I took a leave of absence from the bench in 2004-05 to serve as co-chairman of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction — a bipartisan body, sometimes referred to as the Robb-Silberman Commission. It was directed in 2004 to evaluate the intelligence community’s determination that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD — I am, therefore, keenly aware of both the intelligence provided to President Bush and his reliance on that intelligence as his primary casus belli.

It is astonishing to see the “Bush lied” allegation evolve from anti-war slogan to journalistic fact.

* BRIAN WILLIAMS... RON FOURNIER... DAN RATHER... WE'RE NOT TALKING "SIMPLY" A BIASED LIBERAL MEDIA; WE'RE TALKING A LYING, CORRUPT MAINSTREAM MEDIA.

The intelligence community’s 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) stated, in a formal presentation to President Bush and to Congress, its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction — a belief in which the NIE said it held a 90% level of confidence.

(That is about as certain as the intelligence community gets on any subject.)

Recall that the head of the intelligence community, Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, famously told the president that the proposition that Iraq possessed WMD was “a slam dunk.”

* YES... I RECALL... (AND WHAT DOES THAT TELL US ABOUT OUR INTELLIGENCE CAPACITIES...?!?!)

Our WMD commission carefully examined the interrelationships between the Bush administration and the intelligence community and found no indication that anyone in the administration sought to pressure the intelligence community into its findings.

As our commission reported, presidential daily briefs from the CIA dating back to the Clinton administration were, if anything, more alarmist about Iraq’s WMD than the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.

* THUS... THE IRAQI LIBERATION ACT OF 1998 SIGNED INTO LAW BY... PRESIDENT WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

* THUS... BILL CLINTON'S SUPPORT OF "BUSH'S WAR."

* THUS... SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON'S VOTE FOR "BUSH'S WAR."

President George W. Bush based his decision to go to war on information about Saddam’s WMD. Accordingly, when Secretary of State Colin Powell formally presented the U.S. case to the United Nations, Mr. Powell relied entirely on that aspect of the threat from Iraq.

Our WMD commission ultimately determined that the intelligence community was “dead wrong” about Saddam’s weapons. But as I recall, no one in Washington political circles offered significant disagreement with the intelligence community before the invasion.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

The National Intelligence Estimate was persuasive — to the president, to Congress and to the media.

Granted, there were those who disagreed with waging war against Saddam even if he did possess WMD. Some in Congress joined Brent Scowcroft, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and former national security adviser, in publicly doubting the wisdom of invading Iraq. ... In any event, it is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised. It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam.

I recently wrote to Ron Fournier protesting his accusation. His response, in an email, was to reiterate that “an objective reading of the events leads to only one conclusion: the administration . . . misinterpreted, distorted and in some cases lied about intelligence.” Although Mr. Fournier referred to “evidence” supporting his view, he did not cite any — and I do not believe there is any.

He did say correctly that “intelligence is never dispositive; it requires analysis and judgment, with the final call and responsibility resting with the president.” It is thus certainly possible to criticize President Bush for having believed what the CIA told him, although it seems to me that any president would have credited such confident assertions by the intelligence community. But to accuse the president of lying us into war must be seen as not only false, but as dangerously defamatory.

The charge is dangerous because it can take on the air of historical fact — with potentially dire consequences.

I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been “stabbed in the back” by politicians.

Sometime in the future, perhaps long after most of us are gone, an American president may need to rely publicly on intelligence reports to support military action. It would be tragic if, at such a critical moment, the president’s credibility were undermined by memories of a false charge peddled by the likes of Ron Fournier.