Manipulation moves me to support Bush

http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0330nj1.htm
I have mentioned numerous times how much I despise the work of Michael Moore. Of course, I have not been so fond of a lot of Bush's work, either. To a certain extent i bought into the "lied" and "manipulated" presentation brought to us by our beloved media. And there has been some of that. But every time they try to "reveal" the "secret agendas" I come out more a supporter of Bush than before. Of course, since I started at virtually no support, that does not mean I am a huge supporter...but I have moved much closer to supporting him yet again thanks to the referenced article.
Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration.
If true, this speaks sadly of us as voters. The fact that an administration consisted of people willing to stand for what they believe instead of toeing the party line is a good thing, not a bad. There is a reason old Jewish law demanded an innoncent verdict if the judges ruled unanimously. People simply don't see things the same way. Nor should they. There are varying levels of caution, varying levels of comprehension, people who grasp varying factors.
The question is how much challenge was offered and by who. And why.
The summary said that although "most agencies judge" that the aluminum tubes were "related to a uranium enrichment effort," the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Energy Department's intelligence branch "believe that the tubes more likely are intended for conventional weapons."
Okay, so the majority believed one way, two agencies another. And believe it is MOST LIKELY. Now lets set the scene a little bit. At the time this occurred, we are fresh off 9-11 and there is still a furor over the failure to take serious enough some of the pre-attack intelligence. Now we are complaining because of error on the side of caution, of taking the worst-case scenario and giving it credence. It is highly unfair to want it both ways, particularly when people are in a highly agitated state after having had recent attacks on our soil. This is not "most agencies judge it was harmless but 2 thought it was dangerous", it is "most thought it was dangerous and 2 thought it might not be". I find criticizing going with the most lethal possibility both disingenuous and unrealistic. Bull-smurf, to put it more bluntly.
For one, Hadley's review concluded that Bush had been directly and repeatedly apprised of the deep rift within the intelligence community over whether Iraq wanted the high-strength aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program or for conventional weapons.
In other words, a large part of the intelligence community saw it as dangerous. Which do you prefer defending the country: someone who, after some of the most deadly attacks by outsiders in our history, errs on the side of caution or someone who puts more trust in the goodwill of people who have historically demonstrated a propensity for attacking others. Oh, wait, Kuwait 'deserved what she got' for wearing that suggestive and alluring oil supply. Never mind.
You cannot use hindsight to honestly criticize a decision made with differing views. Because one later turned out to be false but at the time most people believed it true does not remove the legitimacy.
And finally, full disclosure of the internal dissent over the importance of the tubes would have almost certainly raised broader questions about the administration's conduct in the months leading up to war.
"Presidential knowledge was the ball game," says a former senior government official outside the White House who was personally familiar with the damage-control effort. "
Full disclosure of internal dissent has never before been seen as a good idea. No, the idea is to present a united front to the enemy. It is the "us against the world" mentality that every SUCCESSFUL nation adopts in times of turmoil.
While I do not dispute the claim, I have more and more problem with the "secret sources" that are cropping up more and more often, particularly in a name-dropping piece like this, I have certain doubts. "There is a deep rift within the intelligent community over the legitimacy and veracity of unnamed sources." I have long laughed about, for instance, stories that came out of the Red Sox clubhouse. Unnamed sources reported all sorts of things that every named source...for instance, I listened to a couple interviews with Curt Schilling, hardly a fountain of silence or shyness, who said, "I was in that clubhouse, and I am very curious who the source was since it never happened while I was there." In other words, he was saying the "unnamed source" was the reporter's imagination. I am not saying that is happening here...but I do question the credibility quite a bit. If you are not willing to stand up for what you are saying then you are not credible. There it is.
In mid-September 2002, two weeks before Bush received the October 2002 President's Summary, Tenet informed him that both State and Energy had doubts about the aluminum tubes and that even some within the CIA weren't certain that the tubes were meant for nuclear weapons, according to government records and interviews with two former senior officials.
Apparently, some in the CIA were certain they were meant for nuclear weapons. The picture emerging is there were people who believed both. Bush haters, not opponents but haters, clearly want to rewrite history to cast him in an even worse light than a clear look at truth does. And that leads to an interesting question; why. Clearly they have an agenda that ignores truth or reality. They take unfair, illegitimate tacks like this. And that makes me question why they are unwilling to admit that he might have selectively chosen the reports that backed up where he wanted to go JUST AS THEY ARE DOING. This is one of the first times in our history when people have chosen more personal danger as the correct choice. Politics are one thing, stupidity another.
I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, then chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, was indicted on October 28 on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his role in outing Plame as an undercover CIA operative.
This is awkward. On the one hand, theoretically endangering someone's life (although if I were to take the same tact as the author of this article, I could retroactively point out that Plame was NO LONGER UNDERCOVER AT THAT POINT, but I won't because at the time we believed she was) is pretty near treasonous. On the other hand, post-Clinton I find it hard to believe that making false statements, perjury or obstruction of justice are prosecutable offenses. Unless the author complained then...he has no right to use this as evidence. Personally, I think they should both be put away for quite some time...perjury is a felony.
Still, this shrill, strident article of threats, allegations, and bad accusations tried so hard to convince me of nonsense it actually had the reverse effect.