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What isn't persuasive, or even very smart politically, is to pretend to have been fooled by what Mr. Gore breathlessly calls the Bush "systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology."
Post, 9/26/2002:
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On one side, President Bush is openly employing the subject as a partisan instrument on the campaign trail. Rather than respond to legitimate questions about his race toward a military confrontation with Saddam Hussein, he accuses the Democrats of being weak in defending national security... The president's cynical and irresponsible manipulation of the issue risks devaluing his credibility as he seeks to convince the United Nations and U.S. allies that action to disarm Iraq is essential. We believe Mr. Bush is right in arguing that Saddam Hussein poses an unacceptable threat, and right in choosing to confront that menace.
Post Today:
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But there was extensive debate going back many years; last fall and winter the nation debated little else. Mr. Bush took his case to the United Nations. Congress argued about and approved a resolution authorizing war.
Post 9/26/2002:
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On the other side, the Democratic leadership in Congress is hurrying to get the issue off the table. Rather than press the administration about a campaign that could risk the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and Iraqis and cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars, it is moving toward quick acquiescence to a resolution giving Mr. Bush broad authority to wage war. Though many Democrats are uneasy, their doubts are being steamrolled by their leaders' zeal to return voters' focus to domestic economic issues. The president's cynical and irresponsible manipulation of the issue risks devaluing his credibility as he seeks to convince the United Nations and U.S. allies that action to disarm Iraq is essential.
Post 02/06/03:
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AFTER SECRETARY OF STATE Colin L. Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Powell left no room to argue seriously that Iraq has accepted the Security Council's offer of a "final opportunity" to disarm. And he offered a powerful new case that Saddam Hussein's regime is cooperating with a branch of the al Qaeda organization that is trying to acquire chemical weapons and stage attacks in Europe. Mr. Powell's evidence, including satellite photographs, audio recordings and reports from detainees and other informants, was overwhelming. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called it "powerful and irrefutable." Revealing those tapes and photographs had a cost, as Iraq will surely take countermeasures. But the decision to make so much evidence public will prove invaluable if it sways public opinion here and abroad. At a minimum, it will stand as a worthy last effort to engage the United Nations in facing a threat that the United States could, if necessary, address alone or with an ad-hoc coalition.
Heh.