Slate
by Fred Kaplan

11/14/05

President George W. Bush has suddenly shifted rhetoric on the war in Iraq. Until recently, the administration's line was basically, 'Everything we are saying and doing is right.' It was a line that held him in good stead, especially with his base, which admired his constancy above all else. Now, though, as his policies are failing and even his base has begun to abandon him, a new line is being trotted out: 'Yes, we were wrong about some things, but everybody else was wrong, too, so get over it.' Quite apart from the political motives behind the move, does Bush have a point? Did everybody believe, in the run-up to the war, that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? And are Bush's Democratic critics, therefore, hypocritically rewriting history when they now protest that the president misled them -- and the rest of us -- into war by manipulating intelligence data?

http://www.slate.com/id/2130295/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp