"Bush lied"--oh, wait...

Commenter JackStraw skewered Dems who've been complaining that 'Bush lied to take us to war in Iraq' by asking a simple question: "Do the following statements ring any bells?"

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." -- From a letter signed by Dem senators Dianne Feinstein, Tom Daschle, John Kerry and others on October 9, 1998, to President Clinton.

"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983." -- Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998

"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." -- Dem senator Tom Daschle in 1998

"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -- Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998

The statements above were all made by Democrats before George Bush was elected President. If you want to claim Bush lied about Saddam's WMD programs to get us into war, how do you reconcile that claim with the above statements by top Dem leaders--statements made years before Bush was President? Either the above Dems believed what they wrote--that Iraq's WMD programs constituted a grave threat--or else *they* were lying when they made those statements.

Actually I wouldn't be surprised if some liberal claimed that none of the above statements was ever made or written, and that Karl Rove somehow managed to plant these fake statements in thousands of newspaper and computer files after 2000 to make it *seem* that the Dems saw the same dangers the Bush administration recognized.

Yeah, dat's it.

A more sophisticated defense would be for the above Democrat senators and NSA advisor Berger (of document-stealing fame) to claim that *they* were wrong, and misled by bad intel--which seems to be true. But of course that would take the sting out of the "Bush lied" meme.

Oooh, can't have that.