July 12, 2003
Who was misled?

The Seatle Post-Intelligencer claims not only that

the president misled the country in the State of the Union speech about the nuclear threat from Iraq
but that
the White House now says, yes, the president misled the American people
First of all, the White House never said the President "misled" anybody, only that
Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq’s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech.
My Oxford English Dictionary defines mislead as
To lead astray in action or conduct; to lead into error
In other words, to "mislead" someone is to lead them in a direction whither they would not otherwise go. So to say that the President "misled" someone about the Iraqi nuclear threat, implies that there are people out there who had opposed the liberation of Iraq, but whose minds were changed on the basis of the President's statement about African uranium. Furthermore, those same people would have to believe, in hindsight, that the liberation of Iraq was a mistake that could have been avoided had the President not said anything about African uranium in the State of the Union speech.

I agree that the President should avoid making statements for which it does not have a very solid foundation. But may I see a show of hands, please, from anybody who felt they were wrongly led to support the war on the basis of this statement? Let me inquire further: Do you feel that you were deliberately deceived? If so, why do you suppose the administration didn't do a better job of maintaining this "deception"?

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 12, 2003 06:16 PM
Comments

It's ludicrous to assert that the whole war hinged on a single sentence in the State of the Union address, whether or not it would have been admissible as ironclad evidence in a criminal trial. Practically 'everybody', beginning with the Clinton Administration (remember Al Gore?) was well enough convinced that Saddam was up to no good with his combination of lethal behavior financed with a practically unlimited oil income, and would better be deposed. Our glorious news media (well, the preponderant liberal majority of it anyway) is drawing slanted conclusions, based on its myopic fixation on that one weak sentence and deliberate exclusion of the other reasons supporting the war. Those pobrecitos who now claim they were misled are half again disingenuous.

Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 13, 2003 06:13 PM

You should hear the rants from the fringe lefties at democratic underground....(example) "THIS will bring down the Bush cabal!" LMFAO

They just don't get "it"....

"It's NOT the economy, stupid....it's national security! Without security, you don't have sh*t!

Posted by: Kevin on July 13, 2003 11:52 PM
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