Froomkin on the Bush Sound Bites

Dan Froomkin is mandatory daily reading:

Bush's argument is deeply flawed. Far from being baseless, the charge that he intentionally misled the public in the run-up to war is built on a growing amount of evidence. And the longer Bush goes without refuting that evidence in detail, the more persuasive it becomes.

And his most prized talking point -- that many Democrats agreed with him at the time -- is problematic. Many of those Democrats did so because they believed the information the president gave them. Now they are coming to the conclusion that they shouldn't have.

Like other Bush campaigns, this one will inevitably feature the ceaseless repetition of key sound bytes -- the hope being that they will be carried, largely unchallenged, by the media -- and virulent attacks by the White House on those who dare to disagree, even going so far as to question their patriotism.

Now, unlike many of my compatriots on the left, I do NOT exonerate the Democrats on their Iraq war vote. Congress was fed whatever of the intelligence the White House wanted it to have -- with any information deviating from that which would justify war deleted. But anyone paying attention should have known. If you listened to Hans Blix, you knew it was bullshit. If you listened to Scott Ritter, you knew it was bullshit. There was plenty of evidence that half a million antiwar marchers had in 2002 that it was bullshit. But the Democrats lacked the spine to stand up to an Administration careening towards war in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. But the fact that the Democrats lacked spine does NOT exonerate the Administration. And frankly, Bush's finger pointing and whining "But they said it was OK too" strikes me as the actions of a spoiled five-year-old, rather than an adult who was supposed to restore honor and dignity to the White House.