How can a lie this big persist this long?
Master blogger Charles Johnson has stumbled across something quite interesting, in direct refutation of a lie peddled by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) during the confirmation hearings for Secretary of State designate Condoleezza Rice.
Despite public rhetoric to the contrary - rhetoric even die-hard pro-war conservatives like myself thought was regrettable fact - Congress never actually authorized the use of military force to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. The act of Congress passed in 2002 which authorized the use of military force by the President in Iraq used phrases like "the risk that the current Iraqi regime will... employ those weapons... combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself."
The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to... defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.What has been cast as mere rhetoric on the part of conservatives - that Iraq's capabilities were a potential threat even if no weapons existed - turns out to be the very language used in the resolution. It's amazing that even a hawk such as I had been warped by the mainstream media into believing that the resolution was more specific than it actually was, that Congress had not authorized the President to remove any active threat, but the mere potentiality of a threat, and to enforce UN resolutions requiring active compliance by Hussein's Iraq.
It's utterly amazing how the Masters of Newspeak have perfected their Svengali-like craft. I've got to stop listening to the news and just read http://thomas.loc.gov for this crap.
