Obama invokes same rationale for hitting Syria as Bush used for Iraq; media quickly corrects the record

Let me direct your attention to a pair of recent articles from a leftist website that show with unusual clarity the media spin machine at work.  First is from three days ago, when Obama gave an interview to PBS:

“When you start talking about chemical weapons in a country that has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world, where over time, their control over chemical weapons may erode, where they’re allied to known terrorist organizations that in the past have targeted the United States, then there is a prospect, a possibility, in which chemical weapons that can have devastating effects could be directed at us,” Obama said. “And we want to make sure that that does not happen.”

Obama told PBS he’s made no decision on Syria but promised that if military action is taken it won’t be “a repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried about.” Instead, the president said limited strikes would essentially convince Syrian leaders not to use chemical weapons anymore.

“We send a shot across the bow saying, stop doing this, that can have a positive impact on our national security over the long term, and may have a positive impact on our national security over the long term [sic] and may have a positive impact in the sense that chemical weapons are not used again on innocent civilians,” Obama said.

The president said U.S. strikes could be the smack on the hand that keeps chemical weapons off the battlefield, and that could protect allies.

Does any of that ring any bells?  Cuz that's same argument used by...George W. Bush prior to invading Iraq.  Anyone recall the term "WMDs"?   Bush was concerned that since Saddam had demonstrably used nerve gas to kill Iraqi Kurds (google "Halabja"), if he wasn't stopped he could use gas or nuclear weapons against the West.

Ooops!  Hurry, erase, erase, erase!!  We demand a Do-over!  And sure enough, the very next day the record was...um...corrected, as follows:

Obama, meanwhile, appeared Wednesday a page [sic; "to take a page..."?] from Bush’s book, warning that letting Bashir Assad and his regime go unpunished after the chemical attacks could lead to eventual chemical attacks on Americans.

That was a half-hearted gambit. Amid wide skepticism and open hostility who remembered [sic; "from those who..."?] the Bush era warnings not to let the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud, the White House walked it back. Spokesman Josh Earnest clarified that the president meant “our critical national security interests in the region,” and “American facilities in the region” — not to a danger that chemical weapons could be used against American citizens here.

Good save, Buzzfeed!  Cuz if you hadn't "corrected" the interpretation, Obozo's clearly-stated reason for using armed force against Syria would be exactly the same as used by Bush to justify Iraq!  Which would make leftists' heads explode.  (Not really--they know that 90% of Obozo's utterances are hogwash, designed simpy to fool the Gaping American Public.)

Two hours later ABC joined the defense team, publishing an article entitled "Don't compare Iraq and Syria."

Obama administration officials have rejected comparisons between the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war and the military strikes in Syria the administration is currently contemplating.  [Wow, what a surprise.]

“What we saw in that circumstance was an administration that was searching high and low to produce evidence to justify a military invasion, an open-ended military invasion of another country, with the final goal being regime change,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said of Iraq on Wednesday.

Earnest told reporters President Obama “has been very clear that he is not contemplating an open-ended military action,” and again drew a distinction between the two scenarios.

State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Marie Harf also rejected any comparisons between the debate over intervention in Syria and the Iraq war.

“I do not think there are any legitimate comparisons between what we were talking about in Iraq and what we’re talking about today,” Harf told reporters.  [She] said the discussion over whether intelligence showed Assad was personally tied to the chemical weapons attack and the discussions about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction are vastly different.

“Nobody needs an intelligence community assessment to know that chemical weapons were used [in Syria],” said Harf. “In Iraq, we were waiting for an intelligence community assessment to determine whether they even existed.”

She added that both the circumstances on the ground and the Obama administration’s goals, if it were to launch strikes against Syria, are in sharp contrast to the Bush administration’s intervention in Iraq.

“What the intelligence is looking at, the situation and the potential responses are of such a grossly different nature,” said Harf.  “Nobody’s talking about boots on the ground in Syria; nobody’s talking about regime change through military options.”

When challenged by reporters over whether the faulty intelligence used to justify the Iraq war has set the bar higher for justification for military action in Syria, Harf again said that the situations are not compatible.

Gosh, is anyone else beginning to sense a vague pattern here?

A week from now no one will be able to prove Obama ever said he was concerned that Syrian chemical weapons might be used on the U.S. 

Meanwhile Buzzfeed sweeps the table with the line, "Obama is stuck in the world Bush left him, playing the role of a war president."  Really?  Is Bush somehow forcing Obozo to strike Syria, thus intervening to support al-qaida fighters (i.e. Muslim extremists, the same folks who brought down the World Trade Center)?  Gee, I don't think so.

And of course what they'd *really* like to erase--but can't, due to the internet--is this:

"The President does not have the authority under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

That was Obama in 2007.  My, how one's perspective can change in just six short years!