Tuesday, July 20, 2004

A potent strategy by the Democrats

A pattern has arisen in the Democrats' efforts to discredit the president and win the White House in November. It's not necessarily a new strategy, but it seems to be gaining momentum as of late. The strategy is simple and centers around the "Bush lied" mantra that we've been hearing since the beginning of the Iraq invasion. Before the invasion, Bush outlined a number of reasons that he felt justified the invasion of Iraq. Among these reasons was Iraq's WMD program, which has become the centerpiece of the "Bush lied" movement. Since stockpiles of WMD's have not been found, the worst accusation is that Bush knew there were no weapons and went to war anyway, and at best, he took us to war based on faulty intelligence, which he should take full responsibility for. Never mind that there have been WMD's found in Iraq (just not sufficient quantities to satisfy opponents of the war) and David Kay's report concluded that Saddam had the infrastructure to be able to ramp up production of WMD's very quickly. Never mind that this report also concluded that there were very likely large shipments of WMD materials shipped out of Iraq before and during the invasion (some of the materials shoed up in a container ship in Holland.) Never mind that the famous "16 words" regarding Iraq's attempt to procure Uranium from Niger in Bush's SOTU address have recently been proven to be accurate. All that the left has had to do is raise the shadow of doubt and keep saying "Bush lied," or, as the Kerry campaign prefers, "Bush misled" (you've got to wonder about people who are so easily misled by a president that is supposed to be a simpleton.) It has become such a part of the public consciousness that the Bush administration looks ridiculous when they try to prove otherwise. The fact that the Bush administration has remained rather silent in light of recent findings regarding the "16 words" and statements from the 9/11 commission which support the validity of pre war intelligence (both from the US and abroad) suggests that they have already lost this debate on some level, regardless of the facts, and that any attempt to point to these facts just makes them look desperate. While it's no surprise this has happened given the support the Kerry ticket has in the media, it has proven to be an effective strategy. Repeat, repeat, repeat. If you repeat something enough it becomes fact to many people. Bush lied about Iraq, the economy is horrible, the environment has worsened; these are all cornerstones of the campaign against Bush, and are all patently false. Let's hope the Bush campaign can figure out a way to explain simple fact before it's too late.

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