There's no way this little exchange reproduced over at Cathie's can possibly get enough airplay to demonstrate the actual depth to which some of the wingnuts have sunk:
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Okay, the human toll: The U.S. military dead in Iraq, including suicides, 2,035; U.S. military amputeed, wounded, injured, mentally ill, 48,100; Iraqi civilians dead, 117,700. . . . Exit question: On an escape probability scale, zero to 10, zero meaning zero probability, 10 meaning metaphysical certitude, what's the probability of the Democrats escaping from their vote in favor of the Iraq war? Pat Buchanan.
MR. [PAT] BUCHANAN: It is about zero. They were derelict in their duty to really force the president to make the case for war convincingly that it was necessary and had to be done now. They did a rotten job in the Congress of the United States, and they're not going to recover by attacking Bush.
Yes, by God, it's those Dems' fault, with their appalling lack of oversight. Pay no mind to the fact that anyone who tried to stand up to the war machine back then was instantly branded an America-hating, terrorist-loving, unpatriotic traitor. They were brow-beaten and bullied into submission and, Goddamit, that's their fault! Pathetic, spineless cocksuckers, the lot of them!
Ignore, as well, that those same Dems were flat-out lied to in every conceivable way. It's their fault for not being psychic. Those bastards. Those evil, evil bastards.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The president lied to them about the causes for going to war.
MR. BUCHANAN: He did not lie to them. The president emphasized, cherry-picked, hyped the causes for going, and set the others aside. That's not lying . . .
It is not possible to take seriously this kind of semantic quibbling from someone who accused Bill Clinton of lying when he said he did not have "sex" with that woman.
MS. CLIFT: Hyped, cherry-picked, misled, whatever the words you used, to me are criminal offenses when you see the suffering that has gone into this war and the cost of this war. It was a war of choice that was sold to the American people on fear.
MR. BUCHANAN: But why didn't the Democrats stop it? Why didn't the Democrats stop it?
There is no God. Because if there was, the heavens would have opened and smote Pat Buchanan into a pile of ashes at that point. Pat Buchanan is still with us. Q.E.D.
JUST SHAKING-YOUR-HEAD TIME: You can only gaze in awe on sleazy and despicable blowhard John McLaughlin whose first question, after cataloguing the quagmire that Iraq has become, is, "How much can we blame the Democrats for this?"
Truly a pathetic excuse for a human being.
4 comments:
In Buchanan's defence - not that the slime-bag deserves it - as I recall he was a vocal war opponent from the beginning. From his perspective, the Democrats would have been the last (and most effective) line of defence against the chickenhawks in his own party, but they laid down and rolled over.
Of course, to continue the metaphor, it is kind of like blaming the dog for letting your house get robbed...
I see your point, but on what grounds does Buchanan think the Dems should have resisted the war?
They had already been publicly told that Saddam and al-Qaeda were in partnership, that Saddam was behind 9/11, that Saddam had WMDs and so on.
If you seriously believed the above, what would be your basis for refusing to invade Iraq?
I just have this image of members of the GOP accusing the Democrats with something like, "Hey, it's your fault for believing our lies!"
The Dems were a bunch of pussies after 9/11. They really thought that their only hope of retaining any seats in Congress was to capitulate to the President's agenda. Fools.
But, yeah, at least Buchanan has been consistently against the war. But blaming the Dems for not stopping the war..well.. hell I kinda blame them too for not standing up to Bush...
Oh God. I agree with Buchanan on something.
However, the Republicans' culpability is getting lost in the noise here.
I take no responsibility for whatever may be rattling around in Buchanan's head.
If I did indeed believe that Hussein was behind 9/11, then no, I can't think of a very good basis for refusing to invade. But there was never anything resembling a good case that this was true.
But if all I believed was that Hussein had WMDs and a working relationship with AQ (kinda like Pakistan), then I'd say war is the last resort. And maybe I'd get killed in the polls, but it would be better than the literal killing that's going on.
Not that any of that should change the focus of blame...
Post a Comment