Clarence Page assaults the President

Reposted as history. Originally posted in January of 2005.


In an editorial that bristles with sarcasm, Clarence Page compares George W. Bush to Gilda Radner.

Bush's promises? Oh, never mind - by Clarence Page - Chicago Tribune - 1/21/2005

..... even without evidence that Saddam has had WMD or the capabilities to make them since the 1991 war, Bush clung to his notion that the war "absolutely" was worth the cost in lives, dollars and our international image. "Saddam was dangerous and the world is safer without him in power," he said.

But, at what cost? Can you hate Saddam and still wonder what urgency compelled the United States to interrupt the international inspectors and rush to war against the tyrant? Is there any evidence that Saddam had anything to do with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks? Oh, never mind that, too.

Yes Clarence, there is evidence that Saddam had "anything to do" with 9/11. Only you on the left are pretending that Bush is saying "never mind". For starters Saddam immediately went on TV praising the people who perpetrated 9/11. At the least you must admit he approved of it.

This approval came from the man who paid the families of all Palestinian suicide killers $25,000. He had long ties with numerous of the islamofascist groups, including meetings with the same group that planned 9/11. We have not found a memo saying "I hereby agree to pay your families $25,000", but there are some memos that say he wanted to. You reject the evidence. However rational people do not.

As for WMD, you now pretend that WMD was the only reason for the war. Actually a little digging will indicate that it was one of 23 reasons listed for the war in the authorizing legislation, and it was down towards the bottom of that list of 23. It is also ironic since it was the left who protested that we should not go to war because Saddam would use WMD and now you are criticizing Bush for sharing your belief he had them.

It was argued by Bush that we could not wait until there was an imminent risk of Saddam providing nuclear weapons to the terrorists. The reason we went to war was to make sure we had time to reduce the risk that nuclear weapons would fall into the hands of Al Qaeda. You ask what urgency compelled us to go in? If you don't think this risk is enough, you will never be persuaded. Being late on nuclear arms protection is simply intolerable. How many Americans have to die before you agree?