I wanted to take a moment today away from a serious fact-based analysis of various issues and just rant for a minute. As I've watched the various post-debate discussions, I've repeatedly heard an assertion which has gone unchallenged, and it's really starting to frost me.
Commentators, campaign managers and even Senator Kerry have said that before we went to war in Iraq, that they believed that the evidence of weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq -- we all did [emphasis mine].
Not ALL of us did. I didn't. The tens of leaks coming out of the CIA on a weekly basis to the contrary indicate that there were intelligence people who didn't. The diligent op-ed columnists who questioned the sudden "drum-beat" for war in Iraq didn't. Obviously, Valerie Plame's husband had questions. The UN inspectors hadn't yet called the game, but were arguing for more time--an indicator that they weren't persuaded either.
So, I challenge those who are examining the issue of whether Iraq is a mistake to stop letting this remark pass as accepted gospel, and to stop letting Kerry and other take themselves off the hook by making it sound as if nobody could have walked away from these discussions with another position on the issue.
Whether the questioners and dissenters were simply a minority, or just a group without an effective channel to communicate their concerns, they still deserve to be acknowledged, not rhetorically "disappeared" after the fact. Those that truly believe that "we all did" were not paying attention. As a nation, we should be mortified that this conversation did not take place before the war, and we should be ashamed that we still cannot have it afterwards.
