Posted by lex, on November 9, 2005
The dry recitation of facts: Names, places, actions. The way things were, rather than the way some folks might like them to have been. The things that people said, rather than what they might later wish to have said.
You either like it or you hate it.
Some folks are really going to hate this: Writing in the on-line magazine Commentary, Norman Podhoretz has assembled a history of the facts leading up to OIF: Who knew what, or thought they did, when: About WMD, an al Qaeda-Iraq terror axis, “imminent” threats, Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, the “sixteen words” spoken by the President to Congress. Who it was that insisted that action was necessary, and then publicly recoiled when action was taken.
Who told the truth and who lied.
Who is lying still.
Go. Read. Save it somewhere. When you grow weary, as most of us have grown weary, of listening to the Big Lie repeated over and over again because it fits someone’s political purpose, when you grow tired of the tedious task of carefully disassembling artificial constructs of “truth” in order to present truth, you can just send them the link, ask them to read it. If they refuse, or sputter, or merely raise their voices trying to drown you out, you’ll know that they aren’t interested in the truth.
And that you, therefore, should not be interested in them. Because as my daddy always told me, “Don’t ever wrestle with a pig, son. You just get dirty, and the pig enjoys it.”
Update: Ah. I see that Kevin Drum, writing in the Washington Monthly, is not impressed with Mr. Podhoretz’s command of the facts. Neither are most of his willfully close-minded commentors. All of this is presented unto us under the caption of “Political Animal.”
“When you grow weary, as most of us have grown weary, of listening to the Big Lie repeated over and over again because it fits someone’s political purpose…”
Quod erat demonstrandum.
I rest.
