The real news in the Downing Street memos is not, I think, some non-existent plot to lie to America about the war. The administration genuinely believed Saddam had WMDs, planned to remove him very shortly after 9/11, and made the broader case for democratization long before the war broke out. I agreed with them on all of it, and still do, apart from the obvious fact that we were wrong about the WMDs. But none of this is what is really scandalous about the memos. What’s scandalous is that they reveal that the administration had no real plans for running Iraq after victory. Kevin Drum lays out the evidence here and calls it “criminal neglect.” He’s right. I assumed that this vital war would have enough troops to succeed and that there was a detailed and smart plan for the post-war. I was wrong. In retrospect, I should have been far more aggressive in asking questions about this before the war; and I apologize for negligence in that department. But I trusted in the competence of the Bush administration. When critics say I’ve changed my tune, they’re wrong about my position on the war on terror in principle. I still support it, believe we are still at enormous risk of catastrophe, desperately want to win in Iraq and see the terror-masters in Tehran and Damascus go down. I have simply lost confidence in this administration’s capacity to wage it effectively, honestly and morally. In the second term, I’ve seen nothing that would allow me to feel cheerier. They’re all we’ve got and we have to support them when they do the right thing and hope that they succeed. But hope is not the same thing as confidence. I’m clinging to one even as I’ve lost all grip on the other.
THE BUSH SPENDING SPREE: That’s not hyperbole. It’s reality. Veronique de Rugy, that flaming leftist from AEI, spells out the appalling Bush record here. Money quote:
Today, we know that compassionate conservatism is really just big government and changing the tone means his veto pen is buried under the ground. The last four years, total spending has risen 33 percent – a figure larger than Clinton’s two terms combined. Adjusted for inflation, one would have to go back to Lyndon Johnson to find a larger increase. Moreover, real discretionary spending increases in FY2002, FY2003, FY2004 and FY2005 are 4 of the 10 biggest annual increases in the last 40 years.
But, as the president constantly tells us, he believes in “spending restraint.” And he doesn’t condone torture. And the Iraq insurgency is in its “last throes.”
The Dish 