Tortured Logic

The Decider told Matt Lauer on NBC that he believed waterboarding was legal "because the lawyer said it was."  Bush continued:  "He said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I'm not a lawyer, but you gotta trust the judgment of people around you and I do."  It certainly helps when the people around you are enablers such as Alberto Gonzalez and John Yoo.  And so, the Bush Legacy Tour continues.  David Corn helpfully demonstrates that Bush's highly selective defense of the Iraq War is filled with falsehoods.  Bush contends that invading Iraq was the right move because "America is safer without a homicidal dictator pursuing WMD." As Corn writes, "Bush is still trying to mislead the American public, for at the time of the invasion, Saddam, brutal dictator that he was, was not pursuing the development or production of WMDs."  Indeed, the report of the Iraq Survey Group, based on the Administration's own investigation, concluded that Saddam was not pursuing weapons of mass destruction.  Bush also tells Lauer, that before invading Irag, "I gave diplomacy every chance to work."  This is also patently untrue.  As Corn reminds us:  "At the time of the invasion, the U.N. weapons inspections program was under way and succeeding in Iraq. The inspectors were resolving key issues, such as whether aluminum tubes obtained by Iraq were for a project to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons (they were not). They also were finding no signs of WMDs." Contrary to the oft-repeated notion that Saddam kicked the inspectors out, "the inspectors were yanked out of Iraq by the U.N. because of the pending invasion. That is, by invading Iraq, Bush ended the ongoing diplomatic process that was effectively dealing with the supposed Iraqi WMD threat."  Bush got away with these "misrepresentations" when he was President.  The big question, as Corn asks, is whether history will repeat itself this week.