There’s an old cliche that says that “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.” Based on this LA Times op-ed, former Sen. George McGovern would’ve been wise to have heeded that axiom. He didn’t and now he looks like a doddering, defensive policymaker whose time has long passed. The object of his scorn in this op-ed is Vice President Dick Cheney. Here’s a sampling of his scorn:

Cheney charged that today’s Democrats don’t appreciate the terrorist danger when they move to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war. The fact is that Bush and Cheney misled the public when they implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks. That was the work of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda team. Cheney and Bush blew the effort to trap Bin Laden in Afghanistan by their sluggish and inept response after the 9/11 attacks.

Mr. McGovern’s op-ed is another ‘episode’ of “Bush lied, people died.” This works in their minds because that’s what they heard when President Bush made his justification for war with Saddam’s terrorist nation. It’s a shame that that isn’t what he said.

What’s worse with that paragraph is that McGovern uses that Democrat talking point instead of proving the Bush administration wrong. Vice President Cheney said that “Democrats don’t appreciate the terrorist danger when they move to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war.” Based on how they’re willing to give up without victory, I’d say that that’s an accurate statement. Instead of proving Cheney’s statement wrong, McGovern slips to the “Bush lied, people died” mantra.

That’s what’s called spin inside the Beltway. In flyover country where I live, it’s called avoiding the subject. That’s predictable behavior for Democrats. When they can’t win the argument, they switch subjects. The way to defeat them, I simply let them have their rant, then I ask them to deal with the facts that I’ve presented. If they refuse to deal with the central facts, then you know you’ve won. What’s even better is that they know you’ve won. Let’s deal with each of McGovern’s claims.

The fact is that Bush and Cheney misled the public when they implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Think of what Mr. McGovern is saying. He said that the Bush administration “implied” that Iraq was involved in 9/11. By saying that, he’s admitting that they didn’t explicitly say that. Stop and think about that. The only ‘proof’ that he can provide is that that’s what he thinks they said. It says more about his line of thinking than anything else.

Cheney and Bush blew the effort to trap Bin Laden in Afghanistan by their sluggish and inept response after the 9/11 attacks.

I’d like to know what Mr. McGovern is basing this statement on. Is he basing his opinion on the fact that the Coalition military drove the Taliban government? Or is he basing it on the fact that the Coalition won a war in Afghanistan, something that no other military had ever done before?

I suspect that McGovern thinks that Afghanistan was a failure because we didn’t hand Osama’s head to President Bush. That’s a disappointment but it’s hardly justification for saying that the Bush administration’s response was “sluggish and inept.”

Just as the Bush administration mistakenly asserted Iraq’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks, it also falsely contended that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exploded the myth that Iraq attempted to obtain nuclear materials from Niger, Cheney’s top aide and other Bush officials leaked to the media that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent (knowingly revealing the identity of a covert agent is illegal).

GRRRR. Joe Wilson didn’t explode “the myth that Iraq attempted to obtain nuclear materials from Niger.” In fact, Bush’s Sixteen Words didn’t even contain the word Niger. Here’s what he said in that SOTU:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Here’s Factcheck’s analysis of Joe Wilson’s ‘findings’:

Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.

• A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
• A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
• Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
• Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA’s conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.

None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech.

The CIA, which sent Wilson on his mission, said that his information confirmed the validity of President Bush’s ‘Sixteen Words’. By definition, that means that Wilson didn’t “explode the myth” of Bush’s ‘Sixteen Words’.

Furthermore, rebutting Wilson’s lies was the Bush administration’s right and their responsibility because Wilson was part of the Kerry campaign’s foreign policy team at the time. Not rebutting him would’ve been seen as the Bush campaign not responding to a Kerry unproven allegation.

Then again, McGovern, Kerry and Wilson would rather not have you remember that part. They’d rather use this as ‘proof’ that President Bush is a ruthless, evil man who destroys anyone that “speaks truth to power” to his administration. Instead, it’s just proof that the Bush administration sought to set the record straight rather than let a lying backstabbing backbencher get away with maligning his administration.

In attacking my positions in 1972 as representative of “that old party of the early 1970s,” Cheney seems oblivious to the realities of that time. Does he remember that the Democratic Party, with me in the lead, reformed the presidential nomination process to ensure that women, young people and minorities would be represented fairly? The so-called McGovern reform rules are still in effect and, indeed, have been largely copied by the Republicans.

The Democrats’ 1972 platform was also in the forefront in pushing for affordable healthcare, full employment with better wages, a stronger environmental and energy effort, support for education at every level and a foreign policy with less confrontation and belligerence and more cooperation and conciliation.

Cheney wasn’t referring to universal healthcare or artificially lowering the unemployment rate through government spending. He wasn’t even thinking about the “so-called McGovern reform rules.” What Vice President Cheney was specifically referring to was McGovern’s peacenik amnesty plan for all draft dodgers. He was also referring to Democrats cutting off funding for the South Vietnamese, which utterly destroyed our credibility with the ‘World Community’.

It isn’t surprising that Mr. McGovern would try mischaracterizing Bush administration policy. It isn’t even surprising that he’d try mischaracterizing Vice President Cheney’s reference to McGovern’s policies.

That’s what happens when a liberal can’t win a fight on the merits.

Technorati Tags: George McGovern, LA Times, Joe Wilson, Bush’s Sixteen Words, Saddam Hussein, CIA, Plamegate, 9/11, President Bush, Dick Cheney

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

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