The latest attack on Democrats has come today from that bastion of pro-Liberal journalism, the Washington Post. Within hours of this article condemning Bill Clinton's supposed lying about his war stance appearing, the left blogosphere was all over it smelling blood.
Why is this article and by extension the diaries touting it, wrong and a hit piece extraordinaire? Because it cherry picks in the extreme. Because before piling on, no one bothered to find out if it was indeed the whole picture. I can forgive doing that to Republicans, a little bit. I cannot forgive doing it to Democrats. Yes, we should criticize our own. But if we do, we need to make even doubly sure we are being fair. Triply sure. Here's the larger picture of what Bill said on the Iraq war:
Was Bill Clinton a warmonger? No better than the PNAC bastards? Lying when he says he opposed the Iraq war?
On the eve of war with Iraq, former President Clinton said we should avoid war and seek a new U.N. resolution. Here's what he said in New York on March 14, 2003, less than a week before the war began:
Do you believe this matters? If you believe it matters—as I do—then you have to decide if it matters whether we bend over backwards to try to disarm him in a way that strengthens rather than divides the world community. If you don’t think it matters, then you’re with a lot of the people in the current administration who think that we’ll just go over there and this will take a few days, after we win—victors always get to write history—everybody will get over this and we’ll get everybody back together and they’ll be glad he’s gone because he’s a thug and a murderer. That’s what they think. If you believe it matters to keep them together, then you’ve got to support some version of what Prime Minister Blair’s doing now, which is to say, okay, he’s finally destroying his missiles. And the administration, to be fair, is nominally in favor of what Blair’s trying to do.
He’s finally destroying his missiles, so let’s give him a certain date in which, in this time, he has to destroy the missiles, reconcile the discrepancies in what we believe is the truth on chemical weapons, reconcile the discrepancies on biological weapons, reconcile the issue of the Drones, and offer up 150 scientists who can travel outside of Iraq with their families for interviews. If you do that, then we’ll say this is really good-faith disarmament, and we’ll go on without a conflict. Now if that passes, however, then you have to be willing to take yes for an answer. You see what I mean? I’m for regime change too, but there’s more than one way to do it. We don’t invade everybody whose regime we want to change. There’s more than one way to do this, but if that passes and he actually disarms, then we have to be willing to take it, and then work for regime change by supporting the opposition to Saddam Hussein within and outside Iraq, and doing other things.
Okay, fair enough. Not pro-invasion, he wanted more inspections. But is this really different from his position one month prior to the war, when he appeared on David Letterman and uttered a statement being widely touted here on Dkos to damn him to hell and back?
Keep going, because this is IT, baby. This is the smoking gun. This is the quote that is dead proof that he is no better than the Bushies, right?
“He is a threat. He's a murderer and a thug,” said Mr. Clinton. “There's no doubt we can do this. We're stronger; he's weaker. You're looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I'd be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished.”
Whoaaa, Nelly, that's pretty bad. Well, it is if you cherry pick it, and don't hear the rest of what he said to Letterman:
“I think the President is doing the right thing to go to the United Nations, to ask them to do something and I hope that whatever we do - I think we need to turn up the heat, I think it's just a mistake to walk away from this,” said Mr. Clinton.
But he finds the idea of the U.S. acting against Iraq - with only British support – problematic.
Mr. Clinton told Letterman that - for now - the next step should probably be more weapons inspections.
“I wouldn't be opposed to trying these inspections one more time because I know that they did work even when he was trying to undermine us, we kept getting tons of stuff out of there,” he said.
We'll leave aside the fact that the article sourced is itself a cherry pick of the interview, so what is being thrown about DKos is actually a cherry pick of a cherry pick. Written by a CBS media hack soundly in Bush's corner at the time. Mmm hmmm. Tell me how reality based we are, again? Cherry pick of a cherry pick?
So, his position was that Saddam was a thug, and if we did go in, we could kick ass (no argument from me there), but that what we needed to do right now was more weapons inspections. Doesn't sound like a PNACer to me. Your mileage may vary.
After the war commenced, President Clinton repeatedly said he would not have invaded Iraq; he would have waited for inspectors to finish their job.
President Clinton: 'I would not have done it until after Hans Blix finished the job.' According to an article in TIME magazine, President Clinton said, "I would not have done it until after Hans Blix finished his job. Having said that, over 600 of our people have died since the conflict was over. We've got a big stake now in making it work. I want it to have been worth it, even though I didn't agree with the timing of the attack." [TIME, 6/24/04
President Clinton: 'I thought that we should not have gone in there until we let the UN Inspectors finish their job.' On CNN’s The Situation Room, Clinton said, “Well, at the time, Wolf, I thought that we should not have gone in there until we let the U.N. inspectors finish their job. That was, after all, the understanding the Senate had when it was asked to vote to Congress to give the president authority to go in.” [CNN, The Situation Room, 8/11/05]
Yeah, but he surely cheerleaded for the war later, right? He was all Rah Rah. Nope. He was a realist, accustomed to giving intelligent answers, not sound bytes.
President Clinton: 'I don’t agree with what was done when it was done.' On CNN, Clinton said, “The question is, what's now best for the American people, for the war on terror, and for the people of Iraq, and the stability of the Middle East? We don't want to set a fixed timetable, if that led to chaos, the establishment of permanent terrorist operations in the Sunni section of Iraq, and long-term greater instability in the Middle East. So, whether you are for it or against it, it seems to me you should all be praying that it succeeds. I am. And so -- and I didn't agree with what was done when it was done. But we are where we are.” [CNN, 12/1/05
Remember (I know it's hard) that we used to have a president who could think his way out of a paper bag, and offer analysis, not truisms. It might behoove us to keep that in mind next time, before we assume that a couple of sentences were or are the whole of this very intelligent man's verbal opinions on any subject.
EDITED TO ADD: I understand why wmtriallawyer's diary was posted. I think he also understands now that my intent was to come out swinging against any half-truth about a Democrat by the Washington Effing Post. This is my point. It wasn't to be a Hillbot, or because I think Bill is the best thing since sliced bread, or because I wanted to start partisan flame wars, or to rehash arguments on how and to what extent the Dems failed us on Iraq.
The WaPo article is a deliberately slanted half-truth. So, arguably, is what Bill said. But if my choice comes down to "Bill is telling a half-truth, and WaPo is telling a half-truth", guess who I will defend tooth and nail? Which one?
THE DEMOCRAT. EVERY TIME. EVERY GODDAMNED TIME. That's how we roll. That's how we win. I don't roll over for smearing crap from WaPo, not even during primary season. I won't if it's aimed at your preferred candidate, either.
Once the primaries are over, you'll want me in your War Room. ;-)