David Brooks Blows Flimsy Air of Conspiracy
David Brooks uses satire in his column today in order to to make light of Harry Reid's demand for a prompt investigation into the White House abuse of intelligence leading up to the Iraq war. I found it to be insulting to our intelligence. It's a no-brainer that a general belief existed, prior to the war, that Iraq still may have had stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions and some believed they had the capacity to restart its production program in the wink of an eye. Yet, the voices of those who had very important views to the contrary were silenced, attacked, and/or buried in the back pages of mainstream newspapers while outright lies were plastered on the front news pages.
Reducing the matter to a conspiracy theory is intellectually dishonest. The public opinion, in a Zogby poll from last June, revealed that a large majority of Democrats (59%) said that they agreed that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicated that they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances. 43% of Independent voters said that they'd favor impeachment if Bush lied.
In the very latest Washington Post-ABC News poll, 55% of the American people now believe Bush misled the country in taking us to war.
The public's trust has been materially shaken by this. I think anyone who's publically supported Bush on his myriad rationales for the Iraq war should be eating humble pie right now - not mocking those who want to look into the bottom of the rationale bag to root out the rotted goods for once and for all.
Our nation has been weakened by the perception that our President and his administration lied to the public. I would think the Republicans would welcome this investigation, if they believe the President will be exonerated and that trust can be restored.
I think David Brooks can do better than this. I don't see his flight of fancy as serving our national interest in a constructive manner.
