Fair Is Fair

I blasted Dick Polman a couple of weeks ago about a Bush column featuring a lot of political insider BS that I couldn't imagine that anyone cared about (all of it from Republicans, of course) with all supposition and no factual content whatsoever.

Well today, he called Bush very nicely on Dubya's most recent lies about Saddam Hussein and whether or not Bush stated that Hussein was linked to terrorism and al Qaeda.

Blog: Bush never made that link?

By Dick Polman
Inquirer Political Analyst

This is an edited portion of an entry in the blog of Dick Polman, The Inquirer's national political analyst. His blog can be found at here.

On Monday, in Cleveland, President Bush said: "I don't think we ever said - at least I didn't say - that there was a direct connection between Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein."

Let's compare Bush's statement with the factual record:

In Bush's March 21, 2003, letter to Congress, justifying the launching of the war against Hussein, he said it was important "to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001."

On May 1, 2003, standing in front of the Mission Accomplished banner, the President stated: "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaeda and cut off a source of terrorist funding... . We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th... . With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."

On June 17, 2004, Bush disputed the findings of the bipartisan 9/11 commission, which had just concluded that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Hussein and al-Qaeda. Bush begged to differ, saying, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda."

That's a sampling.

Lots of stuff going on with yours truly at the moment...hopefully more posts coming up soon.