[The_Rorschach]

"The fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration took NO STEPS to increase efforts to stymie al Qaeda"

Yeah. . .They asked Condoleeza why they didn't draw up a plan to invade Afghanistan to take out the Taliban pre-Sept 11, and yet still moan about Bush's pre-emptive war with Iraq.

Seemed pretty obvious that petty partisan politics were at play again, and rather than analyzing what could be done to safeguard American interests, lives and property in the future, assigning blame--not securing our nation against terrorists--is the true goal of this little Spanish Inquisition.

I'm losing faith in the Democratic Party -which is not to say I have any in the Republican Party either- but, well. . .Here, a small highlight of the hypocritical stances they've taken (from Maloney, so no credit goes to me):

Let's look at the foreign policy arguments the Democrats have been making:

The Bush Administration did not do enough to prevent September 11th. Some of the criticisms lobbed during the 9/11 Commission hearings question why the Bush Administration did not--prior to September 11th--start acting on a plan to invade Afghanistan preemptively, topple the Taliban, and rout al Qaeda. But if such a plan existed, and President Bush tried to carry it out before September 11th, does anyone seriously think the Democrats would have supported it? If you think they would have, then you haven't been paying attention for the last two years.

Saddam Hussein is a menace and must be removed. This was an argument made by many Democrats when one of their own--Bill Clinton--was in the White House. In fact, President Clinton, along with the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, made it the official policy of the United States to seek regime change in Iraq. Several times, Clinton even acted unilaterally against Saddam Hussein. There was no Democratic hand-wringing about consulting the U.N. first, nor was there any discussion about how the French, Russians or Germans would feel about it. Apparently, our foreign policy only requires outside approval when Republicans are in office.

Saddam Hussein never attacked us. We shouldn't have gone in and taken out his regime. The Democrats criticized President Bush for not acting unilaterally in Afghanistan before September 11th. And the Democrats supported taking out Saddam Hussein when President Clinton was in office. But once President Bush came into the White House, the Democrats changed their tune. They want unilateral action whenever President Bush doesn't take unilateral action, but when the president does take unilateral action, that's not good either.

We haven't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush lied!!! During the Clinton Administration, Democrats said Saddam Hussein had such weapons. They were reading the same intelligence reports that President Bush relied upon. But that didn't stop people like Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy from accusing President Bush of lying and saying he "concocted the war in Iraq from Texas". (Kennedy, it should be noted, once said, "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.") To date, I have never gotten an answer to this question: if President Bush concocted all the "lies" about Saddams's weapons, then how did he manage to--years before he came into office--convince so many Clinton Administration officials that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?
-Evan Coyne Maloney