You Don't Say

[Matt]

On the one hand, it's a huge deal that former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is now out there admitting that the Iraq War was a mistake sold with lies. But on the other hand, it's sort of banal. We've known this for years. It's a shocking truth about our current state of affairs, but not a truth that any longer has the capacity to shock me. On the other hand, this from Byron York was interesting:

One of the main reasons John McCain is facing such an tough job today is that we are now in the sixth year of a war that the president of his own party started by mistake. That's a major headwind when you're running for president; an error of that magnitude will exact a political price. Would anyone be surprised if voters say that they've had enough?

That all seems reasonable enough to me, but what York is missing is that McCain doesn't think it was a mistake. One would think the virtue of nominating a guy who doesn't have close personal ties to the Bush administration would be that McCain could say something like "hey, I think liberalism is wrong and conservatism is good, but that doesn't mean I'm a sociopath who loves war so much that he still thinks the invasion of Iraq was a good idea." But he doesn't say that, presumably because he doesn't believe it. At even a time when the chief propagandists of the Bush administration are willing to admit that there BS was BS, he's a true believer.

Comments

Well said, Matt. I saw that Byron York post over at the Corner and I thought it was a bit off the reservation.

Posted by Marshall | May 28, 2008 11:01 AM

...we are now in the sixth year of a war that the president of his own party started by mistake.

Bush started it by mistake? What happened? Did he trip on the rug in the Oval office and accidentally press the "Start Iraq War" button?

Posted by Jim W | May 28, 2008 11:03 AM

Yeah - I don't buy the use of the word "mistake" - it's too morally neutral of a word and implicitly lets these guys off the hook for the mendacity and reprehensibility of virtually everything associated with the war

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | May 28, 2008 11:07 AM

Exactly, Jim W. Oops - how did all those troops get over there and just accidentally start bombing? I guess once you make one tiny mistake like that, it's hard to not just keep going towards a full blown disaster.

Posted by Julene | May 28, 2008 11:08 AM

Bush started it by mistake? What happened? Did he trip on the rug in the Oval office and accidentally press the "Start Iraq War" button?

Almost! What actually happened was that Bush slipped on a banana peel that Cheney strategically had placed right in front of the "Start Iraq War" button.

Posted by peep | May 28, 2008 11:08 AM

And of course McCain's staunch support of the Iraq War was the only reason he could win the nomination, given his other problems among Republican primary voters.

So the problem is really that the Party itself is unwilling to admit the war was a mistake. Which in turn is a large part of why the Party is facing a growing party ID disadvantage, and the likelihood of significant losses in the upcoming election.

Posted by DTM | May 28, 2008 11:11 AM

Exactly, Jim W. Oops - how did all those troops get over there and just accidentally start bombing? I guess once you make one tiny mistake like that, it's hard to not just keep going towards a full blown disaster.

Posted by Julene | May 28, 2008 11:11 AM

But is it news that Byron York thinks the war was a mistake? That doesn't seem like the sort of comment that would go over well on the Corner.

Posted by KCinDC | May 28, 2008 11:12 AM

It was not a "mistake" -- they did it on purpose.

It was a crime.

Posted by cervantes | May 28, 2008 11:13 AM

I thought Commander Coocoo Bananas fell on the "Start worst mistake in US History" button when he fell after choking on a pretzel.

Posted by tom | May 28, 2008 11:15 AM

[their] BS was BS...

You may continue.

Posted by typo police | May 28, 2008 11:21 AM

"But is it news that Byron York thinks the war was a mistake? That doesn't seem like the sort of comment that would go over well on the Corner."

It was a mistake that Bush trusted the Democrats to stop his hubris. They are enablers. Its all the Democrats fault.

Posted by Jayhawk Max | May 28, 2008 11:21 AM

Well, I think the most interesting thing of all in that quote is that Byron York, apparently, isn't one of those people in Bush's "party." McCain belongs to the party that started the war by mistake, but Byron York talks about the Republican party and its president as though they were as distant from him and his interests as the inca emperor in peru.

aimai

Posted by aimai | May 28, 2008 11:22 AM

Regardless what people write, think or say about the failures of the Iraq war, the mission was accomplished. It was never about WMDs, democracy, or even oil.. It was always about Israel..
http://joeland7.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/is-modern-israel-in-bible-prophecy/
http://joeland7.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/beware-of-the-beast-the-beasts-of-revelation-13-identified/

Posted by joe | May 28, 2008 11:22 AM

BTW, how brave is it that Scott McClellan is now coming out five years later to reveal what a sham the war was? Now that the war is nearly universally unpopular and he is no longer in a position to do much of anything about it, it truly takes an unprecedented courage to write a tell-all book five years after the fact and make money while thousands of soldiers and hundreds of thousands of civilians have died in the interim.

Scott McClellan, you are this generation's greatest hero.

Posted by Jayhawk Max | May 28, 2008 11:24 AM

@cervantes - exactly - Paul O'Neill said they were talking about it pretty much from Day 1, well before 9/11. They should be prosecuted for war crimes.

Posted by blogenfreude | May 28, 2008 11:24 AM

Regardless what people write, think or say about the failures of the Iraq war, the mission was accomplished. It was never about WMDs, democracy, or even oil.. It was always about Israel..
http://joeland7.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/is-modern-israel-in-bible-prophecy/
http://joeland7.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/beware-of-the-beast-the-beasts-of-revelation-13-identified/

Posted by joe | May 28, 2008 11:25 AM

You could say that starting the war was a mistake, but you can't say it was "started by mistake".

Posted by Njorl | May 28, 2008 11:26 AM

For all of our natural reaction of "Now that vast harm has been done, he comes out with this stuff", it still is an important development. For us these revelations are nothing new, but we still have a large subpopulation in denial. Maybe just a few of them can be brought to the truth. The vast majority of course will continue to believe that a man who fears the same god as they, can do nothing wrong.

Posted by bigTom | May 28, 2008 11:28 AM

I don't believe that John McCain really thinks that the Iraq War wasn't a mistake. He may say that is what he thinks, but he is simply lying.

He's lying because he believes that demonstrating commitment to the war effort requires him to make certain symbolic statements and to refrain from making certain other statements.

In other words, he's BS-ing.

This is what we should expect from the "straight talking maverick", because lying in the service of symbolism is his common means of expression, and members of the press refuse to talk about it, because it would require them to remove their lips from his...well, you know.

Posted by Brian | May 28, 2008 11:38 AM

that 'their' (there) BS was BS
delete

Posted by couser | May 28, 2008 11:40 AM

Shouldn't this be enough to impeach him on? We have two members of the inner circle who have come forward on this. Add in Powell and/or Armitage if they are willing and maybe some CIA analysts who were pressured and that's a whole lot of eyewitness testimony. If "high crimes and misdemeanors" don't include lying to the nation to start a war, those words are meaningless and we might as well piss on Madison's grave.

Posted by Reality Man | May 28, 2008 11:45 AM

I think Rove's recent statement that McClellan "sounds like a lefty blogger" is the perfect vindication for lefty bloggers everywhere.

Posted by Doug | May 28, 2008 11:45 AM

This is a pretty dumb thread. The "mistake" to which York refers is obviously the idea that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD, which was a mistaken judgement of the CIA. How hard is that to figure out?

Posted by Al | May 28, 2008 11:47 AM

BTW, how brave is it that Scott McClellan is now coming out five years later to reveal what a sham the war was? Now that the war is nearly universally unpopular...

Jayhawk, it makes him "serious".

Posted by Arun | May 28, 2008 11:52 AM

"This is a pretty dumb thread. The "mistake" to which York refers is obviously the idea that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD, which was a mistaken judgement of the CIA. How hard is that to figure out?

Posted by Al | May 28, 2008 11:47 AM"

I'm worried about Al. We should send somebody to his house to make sure he hasn't OD'd on the poisoned Kool-Aid with the other cultists.

Posted by Reality Man | May 28, 2008 12:02 PM

The Bushpigs and their few remaining supporters deserve (at the very least) to be pelted with rocks and garbage every day for the remainder of their despicable, worthless lives. This includes Scott McClellan (too little too late, Scotty) and Al (go Cheney yourself, fuckstick).

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | May 28, 2008 12:07 PM

Right Al. If only someone like the UN was allowed in before the war this all could have been avoided....

Posted by Rob | May 28, 2008 12:10 PM

God Bless Scott McClellan.

This is what PATRIOTISM looks like - truth, honesty, courage....

Thank you Scott,

start-loving dot blogspot dot com

Posted by Start Loving | May 28, 2008 12:14 PM

Yes, Bush "veered TERRIBLY OFF course" -- Scott McClellan's own words --, and the country is NOW paying the TERRIBLE prize for it. SHAMEFUL.

Posted by KYJurisDoctor | May 28, 2008 12:33 PM

The Iraq War wasn't a 'mistake' or due to misplaced trust in the CIA. The Bush rationale was based on lies, and the CIA was hectored to support the lies.

They got the war they wanted for reasons now known only to God.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 28, 2008 12:49 PM

There's video of the Admin lying. Barefaced. It isn't hard to find. Rumsfeld after having been asked if the Admin simply strongly believed in the existence of WMDs rather than 'knowing' dismissed the idea that they didn't know. They knew where they were, even. Around Tikrit.

When challenged about it, Rumsfeld denied he said it.

You can't know what just ain't so.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 28, 2008 1:10 PM

This is a pretty dumb thread. The "mistake" to which York refers is obviously the idea that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD, which was a mistaken judgement of the CIA. How hard is that to figure out?

This is a very dumb post. The "mistake" was obviously to let the UN inspectors stay in there as long as they did, when even with pointers from the US, they couldn't find ANYTHING. That, and the Fahrenheit 911 footage of Powell and Rice and others stating plainly that Iraq posed no significant threat, with Saddam in his box, shows how deluded Al and the rest of the 28% are.

How hard is THAT to figure out?

Of COURSE it was based on lies. And the MSM still has us calling it a "war" rather than an OCCUPATION.

Do you support the continued occupation of Iraq? That's the question to be asking, over and over.

Posted by tubino | May 28, 2008 1:16 PM

So war crimes, violating the constitution and lying about the cost of war are now a "mistake?"

Thanks for clearing that up for us, Byron. Really, we appreciate it.

Posted by Hank Essay | May 28, 2008 1:22 PM

This is a pretty dumb thread. The "mistake" to which York refers is obviously the idea that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD, which was a mistaken judgement of the CIA. How hard is that to figure out?

This is a very dumb post. The "mistake" was obviously to let the UN inspectors stay in there as long as they did, when even with pointers from the US, they couldn't find ANYTHING. That, and the Fahrenheit 911 footage of Powell and Rice and others stating plainly that Iraq posed no significant threat, with Saddam in his box, shows how deluded Al and the rest of the 28% are.

How hard is THAT to figure out?

Of COURSE it was based on lies. And the MSM still has us calling it a "war" rather than an OCCUPATION.

Do you support the continued occupation of Iraq? That's the question to be asking, over and over.

Posted by tubino | May 28, 2008 1:22 PM

Of course Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz/Ellis/Rove are mentally retarded and mentally ill, but we shouldn't give them much more attention than placing them in the psych ward of a federal prison for life. They are run-of-the mill criminal sociopaths that will be forgotten in the dustbins of history.

What will remain are the pathologies they suffer from, which have been around since we were amoebas and are the real problems that must be solved. Those solutions will come from the genetics lab, so if you really want to help over the long term, go back to school and get a degree in a physical science and lend a hand. The more people working on this the better.

Posted by Fight The Pathology Not The Person | May 28, 2008 1:31 PM

This is a pretty dumb thread. The "mistake" to which York refers is obviously the idea that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD, which was a mistaken judgement of the CIA. How hard is that to figure out?

This is a very dumb post. The "mistake" was obviously to let the UN inspectors stay in there as long as they did, when even with pointers from the US, they couldn't find ANYTHING. That, and the Fahrenheit 911 footage of Powell and Rice and others stating plainly that Iraq posed no significant threat, with Saddam in his box, shows how deluded Al and the rest of the 28% are.

How hard is THAT to figure out?

Of COURSE it was based on lies. And the MSM still has us calling it a "war" rather than an OCCUPATION.

Do you support the continued occupation of Iraq? That's the question to be asking, over and over.

Posted by tubino | May 28, 2008 1:32 PM

My bad!

Posted by President Bush | May 28, 2008 1:35 PM

The plan to attack Iraq was already in place before Bush took office. It was spelled out in a document issued in September 2000 by a group called "Project for a New American Century," (PNAC) formed in 1997, which stated:

'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

PNAC members include those who were to form the core of the Bush administration: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Scooter Libby, Richard Perle, and other well-known noeconservatives including William Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. This document has been freely available to the press since long before the Iraq invasion, yet it was not discussed in the run-up to the war, nor has it been referred to since then.

McLellan should have spoken up sooner, and he is still as culpable as any member of this administration for the catastrophe of this unnecessary war.

But the press completely abdicated its responsibility. In the run-up to the war it fed the public a steady stream of propaganda issued by the people who wrote that document and whose intention was clear to anyone who bothered to check.

By the way, the link to the PNAC website is no longer active but it's not hard to find the pdf document (called "Rebuilding America's Defenses) online. Here is a link:

http://tvnewslies.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Posted by DeiJohnson | May 28, 2008 1:53 PM

Back in pre-election 2004, Republican Chairman Pat Roberts of the Senate Intelligence Committee promised a report on Bush's use of Iraqi intelligence. The Report was supposed to compare the information delivered to the President with what the President was telling the public.

Anyone seen that Intelligence report?

Posted by Don Williams | May 28, 2008 2:25 PM

It was a "mistake" in the Tallyrandian sense: worse than a crime.

Posted by rea | May 28, 2008 2:35 PM

Let's face it: everyone wants to like John McCain because he went through hell in Vietnam and he's affable.

But you know what? As much as I admire his strength in getting through that, that does not even begin to qualify someone for public office. For instance, it doesn't mean McCain knows anything about war. How does getting your plane shot down and being tortured -- as awful as it no doubt is -- qualify anyone for anything?

McCain knows jack shit about war except that he likes them because its the family business, the same way Bill Kristol likes conservativism and Hank Williams Jr. likes country music.

McCain's judgment on war is so bad that not only did he not oppose the war beforehand, he actually jumped on the bandwagon just as it was driving over a cliff.

Clearly he has no worthwhile judgment whatsoever about war. Or justice. Or right and wrong. Never forget that we got something like a million Iraqis killed.

That's a lot of rotting meat.

Posted by The Fool | May 28, 2008 2:52 PM

Actually, the war in Iraq may end up being a wash, if Al Qaeda & its franchises are as demoralized as now appears to be the case.

Bad intelligence does not equal bad intentions. The sophomoric leftie foreign policy establishment doesn't have much more than its wish to see the US lose another war behind its arguments.

Posted by daveinboca | May 28, 2008 3:13 PM

William F. Buckley was a bit ahead of Byron York:

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
February 24, 2006 2:51 PM

It Didn't Work

By William F. Buckley Jr.

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes—it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.

Posted by Steve J. | May 28, 2008 3:48 PM

William F. Buckley was a bit ahead of Byron York:

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
February 24, 2006 2:51 PM

It Didn't Work

By William F. Buckley Jr.

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes—it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.

Posted by Steve J. | May 28, 2008 3:51 PM

William F. Buckley was a bit ahead of Byron York:

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
February 24, 2006 2:51 PM

It Didn't Work

By William F. Buckley Jr.

"I can tell you the main reason behind all our woes—it is America." The New York Times reporter is quoting the complaint of a clothing merchant in a Sunni stronghold in Iraq. "Everything that is going on between Sunni and Shiites, the troublemaker in the middle is America."

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed.

Posted by Steve J. | May 28, 2008 3:53 PM

"Actually, the war in Iraq may end up being a wash"

As in all the neokooks will blithely wash their hands of the blood of the million or so Iraqis they got killed based on a despicable WMD hoax that led to a war that is all downside in 10 different dimensions and no up.

Fuck you dave.

There is no reasoning with people like this.

Posted by The Fool | May 28, 2008 3:58 PM

Most of my friends are successful college graduates educated at some of the best Catholic prep schools in DC...and these friends still think Iraq was a good idea and that we're safer as a result of our invasion and occupation. While I'd like to write them off as morons for inexplicably believing something that to me is so demonstrably and inarguably false, I know that they're not. They simply don't follow politics particularly closely, and when they do pay attention, they learn their "facts" from the MSM's pathetic and often pro-war coverage of Iraq, as crystallized by the recent revelations of the Pentagon's pushing pro-war generals forward to propagandize the Iraq war in major media outlets (with the MSM outlets predictably buying this nonsense wholesale.)

My friends may be wrong. McCain may be wrong.... in fact, all of them are wrong about this idiotic war being "good for America." Nevertheless - most of my friends are voting for McCain, and that's got me quite scared about Obama's prospects this Fall...

Posted by edsbowlingshoe | May 28, 2008 4:03 PM

edsbowlingshoe: I was educated at THE best Catholic prep school in D.C. and I can tell you if that's who your friends are they are far from a representative sample of America -- they're almost all Republicans -- so don't despair for Obama based on that alone.

Ask your friends what their Jesuit teachers would have said and about the Catholic just war tradition...

Posted by Monarchomach | May 28, 2008 4:38 PM

edsbowlingshoe, if your friends still live in DC, don't despair because Obama is going to win there anyway.

Posted by Reality Man | May 28, 2008 5:32 PM

"Rumsfeld after having been asked if the Admin simply strongly believed in the existence of WMDs rather than 'knowing' dismissed the idea that they didn't know. They knew where they were, even. Around Tikrit.

When challenged about it, Rumsfeld denied he said it."

And he got caught on that, too. There was also a great video around of Rumsfeld being sandbagged by a news team on his statement that Iraq's nuclear threat was "imminent". He denied saying it, and the news team was ready for that. They immediately popped up the direct quote on screen with source and date.

It was hilarious. Rumsfeld was so thunderstruck that he'd been so deliberately sandbagged that he actually sat there for about fifteen to twenty seconds of dead silence. Nobody spoke.

It was the most effective sandbagging of a liar on TV I've ever seen.

Then he got caught AGAIN on CBS! See that video clip here (WMV video - can be downloaded):
http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7bE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7d/RUMSFELDDENY4.WMV

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 28, 2008 6:23 PM

As Dick Cheney would say - "So...."

Posted by JSmith | May 28, 2008 8:48 PM

The bit where McClellen said that Bush honestly "coudn't remember" if he had used cocaine before: Scott said he realizes he was witnessing someone who wills to make themselves believe something, in order to feel as though they're not lying. Its an lying impulse we all have that makes us feel petty, and like a 5-year-old, and yet it's the President. That immature self-denial is all over this country, and quite at ease - or else, we would be simply combusting with suspicion and anger about the conflicts of interest that exist with Cheney's industry investment profits and Bush's oil family and Saudi connections.

They may be innocent and even noble, but with Halliburton being a company offering what it does, and a Bush's history of oil-business relationships, when they say anything about defense or economy, they should dutifully preface it with "I know my personal profits could increase exponentially with the my decision, but I PROMISE I'm not thinking about that...."

That said, McClellan directly profits from his book. But am I just lying to myself so I don't have to miss the game tonight storming the castle?

Posted by ethan willis | May 28, 2008 9:11 PM

McClellan book is dynamite.. but the Iraq mission was accomplished.. The mission or Iraq war wasn't about WMDs, Democracy, not even oil... it was all about Israel and the NWO.
http://joeland7.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/is-modern-israel-in-bible-prophecy/
http://joeland7.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/the-new-world-order-religious-and-political-conspiracy/

Posted by joe | May 28, 2008 10:25 PM

"Actually, the war in Iraq may end up being a wash"

Dave, you ignorant, er, loose person. The war in Iraq has had no negative impact on al Qaeda. A scraggly few of their wannabes have gone there to have a chance to target Americans. That's pretty much the extent of al Qaeda's interest, presence, exposure and commitment in Iraq. Meanwhile, that war has cost and weakened us badly. It's the best thing that ever happened to al Qaeda.

The vast number of lies and misdirections a person has to have swallowed to think as you do is simply mind-numbing. Proof again that even if this book isn't "news," it's a message that badly needs re-stating.

Posted by Nomo Stew | May 28, 2008 10:56 PM

"The war in Iraq has had no negative impact on al Qaeda."

Translation: You don't know what effect the war in Iraq has had on al qaeda, but you desperately want it not to have had a negative impact on that organization, because you're against the war and any positive effect of the war would undermine your opposition, therefore you'll just state your hopeful guess as if it were established fact.

Posted by Dinty Moore | May 28, 2008 11:04 PM

Is there truly a "positive" effect of this war? One that would sufficiently outweigh the negative effects of this war to prove it was a good idea?

Toto, I don't think we're anywhere near Ground Zero, Manhattan, anymore ...

Posted by Kerry Canfield | May 29, 2008 4:41 PM

The war in Iraq has in fact had a positive impact on Al-Qaeda as it's given them a rallying cry to recruit new adherents who previously may have been passive and uninvolved; it's given them a place to target Americans more easily, and it's given them tons of field experience that they can deploy in the future as desired.

No nebulous post from the likes of "Dinty Moore" calling into question a poster's patriotism for questioning the intelligence of our Iraq policy will change that - it's folks Dinty who can't take the heat for supporting stupid policies who helped us get into this mess in the first place. Dinty should be on his knees begging forgiveness for supporting this idiocy that's bankrupting this country, destroying our reputation around the world, killing American troops, and killing well over one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians buy now.

Posted by edsbowlingshoe | May 29, 2008 4:58 PM