From It Affects You
I missed Bush’s speech this morning. An hour or so later, I went over the transcript expecting to see mostly tired Bushisms on the war. I wasn’t disappointed. The speech was nothing new, with one of the few things to note being the extent which the lines between the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq have been completely blurred.
There were at least six direct references to September 11 in the speech. And guess how many references to Saddam? That’s right: zero. Saddam Hussein has gone from Bush’s favorite evil tyrant to someone Bush would like you to forget about.
This is not really new either. I’ve written many times here how conservatives have shifted months ago to discussing the war in Iraq solely in the context of the war on terror. In the days leading up to the war and in the months after, it was all about mushroom clouds and WMDs and evil tyrants. Whenever Cheney or Bush or one of the conservative talking heads tried to link Iraq to 9/11, they were met with rebuttals from the reality-based community. Sadly, that didn’t always include very much of the media.
Fast forward a few years, and Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. But, as I’ve written before, it became that way not despite conservative foreign policy but because of it. Now that a political version of the self-fulfilling prophesy has in part made conservative rhetoric accurate, they would like you to forget the middle steps. They would like to completely blur the lines and convince Americans that we have always been fighting terror in Iraq, that our initial invasion was against the evil armies of al Qaeda. Too much media attention on Saddam ruins that illusion because it reminds Americans that, oh yeah, it wasn’t bin Laden and Zarqawi from the start, this war wasn’t always about terrorism, and Iraq wasn’t always such a massive terrorist recruiting and training ground. How’d it get so screwed up?
Bush and co have largely received a free pass from the media on this transition. It is almost a bit odd. Back near the start of the war, activists and some in the press gave conservatives a hard time when they tried to link Iraq to 9/11. But now years later when the press is actually showing some signs of life, they generally have been completely willing to allow this line of rhetoric to go unchallenged. In response to one of these press conferences, I would love to see a member of the press ask a question something like, “Mr. President, do you regret your role in greatly expanding terrorists’ grip on the Middle East?”
From It Affects You
