Last time around, liberals saw their incessantly touted "war on women" as a premise to embarrass Republican and gain advantage with voters. This time around, they're harping on an actual war, the one fought in Iraq, and yet again liberals are relying on a dishonest premise.
After Jeb Bush's meandering journey last week in answering questions about the start of the conflict, and Marco Rubio's combative interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday on the same subject, Rush Limbaugh is suggesting a better way for GOP candidates to respond -- reject the premise.
"The premise"? That the Iraq war was a monumental foreign policy blunder for which Republicans are solely responsible and should bow their heads in perpetual shame, despite ridding the world of the worst tyrant since Pol Pot.
Limbaugh went after it with a vengeance on his radio show Monday and it made for bracing
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Knowing what we know now, should somebody ask Hillary if Bill Clinton should have just gone ahead and killed bin Laden when he had the chance several times? Knowing what we know now, should Bill Clinton have pulled out of Somalia? Blackhawk down, because that's what convinced bin Laden that we were a paper tiger. Bin Laden said so to an ABC reporter, John Miller. He said, yeah, when I saw you guys cut and run from Somalia, I knew you could be had. So knowing what we know now, should Bill Clinton have pulled out of Somalia when he did?
But I've got an entirely different perspective on this -- why even accept the premise in this knowing what you know now? The premise in the knowing what you know now question is that Iraq was a mistake, that Iraq was a total boondoggle. .... Knowing what we know now, should Bill Clinton have used a condom with Monica when she had on the blue dress?
Following a commercial break, Limbaugh elaborated on his premise --
I know this will not happen but I would love to see it -- I wish one of these Republicans would not accept the premise in this knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion of Iraq, or should Bush have, or was it a mistake, or what have you. Because the premise is that it was a mistake.The premise is that it was a debacle. The premise is that it was the worst damn thing that ever happened in America, was the Iraq war. And that premise need not be accepted.
I would love it if Rubio or Jeb or anybody says -- well you know what, Chris (alluding to Fox News's Chris Wallace), you know what George (Stephanopoulos, purported ABC newsman/Clinton cheerleader), you know what, pick your native liberal reporter, knowing that the Democrats would rip this country apart because of the Iraq war, knowing that the Democrats would actively seek the defeat of the U.S. military, and knowing that the Democrat party would do everything they could to sabotage the war effort, I might have rethought it.
Knowing what I know now that the Democrat party was going to take the occasion of the Iraq war to rip this country apart, that they would use it to elect an unqualified president who would then cut and run, Barack Obama, I might not have, George. I might not have, Chris.
The definitive account of this abject betrayal during wartime comes by way of another Limbaugh -- author, lawyer and NewsBusters blogger David Limbaugh's devastating 2006 book, "Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party." Back to commentary along the same lines from David's brother Rush --
If I had known what the Democrats were going to do, and if I had known that an incompetent like Obama was going to be elected, who would inherit a stable Iraq and then abandon it, I might not have, George, I might not have, Chris, had I known Obama was going to be the next president. Why accept the premise that it was a debacle? When Obama was elected, Iraq was stable.
Evidence of this comes from the fact that candidate Obama in 2008 seldom mentioned Iraq, despite the fact that it was his singular opposition to the war among Democrat candidates four years early that won him the party's nomination. After the surge turned the tide in Iraq in 2007, Obama saw little to gain from continuing to badmouth the war effort after momentum shifted away from the insurgency. It wasn't until early September 2008, when it became too obvious for even the most deluded partisan to deny, that Obama belatedly acknowledged the success of the surge.
In fact, Obama, if you'll recall, liked the surge so much, after the fact, don't forget this either, before the surge, every damn one of these Democrats tried to sabotage it. Here comes Petraeus up to Capitol Hill to testify about it and before he said a word Hillary's calling him a liar, MoveOn.org with a full page ad in the New York Times calling him a liar, calling him General Betray Us. The surge went on to work. It worked so well that you may not have remembered this but Obama actually used the tactic of the surge in Afghanistan. Remember that? And I think it was with General Betray Us again.
But accepting the premise that it was a total debacle is something that need not happen. And by the way, these guys are running for president and I don't care what their consultants say, they are running against a Democrat. I don't know who it's going to be, Hillary .... And I hear this talk, this is another thing, it's already happening yet. I'm hearing Republican consultants and others who issue advice, free and otherwise, tell Republicans -- forget Obama, could we just move on? It's not about Obama, he's a lame duck, forget Obama, don't mention Obama. Well, BS to that! The country is the mess it is because of Obama and the reasons why, they're rooted in policy. It's time to educate people.
So here comes this knowing what you know now question about Iraq -- turn it right around on 'em and blame all this on the Democrats, not Bush! They supported it, they voted for going to war in Iraq. They're the ones that cut and ran at the first sign of trouble. They're the ones that wanted to act like they never supported it. They're the ones whose media buddies let 'em get away with that.
And let's not forget something very crucial -- both Barack Hussein O and Joe Biden tried to take credit for winning the war in Iraq! I'm sure some of you may remember that when I mention it here. I'll never forget Biden and Obama both at a high point in Iraq where it was stable and there were elections and it looked like the Iraq war had been won, they're out there taking credit for it!
Expect to hear ever other GOP candidate get asked the knowing-what-we-know-now question while Hillary Clinton hides from the media, secure in her belief that she can skate to the Democrat nomination -- unless and until ISIS captures Baghdad and turns the city into a charnel house, at which point she may have to actually a question or two from reporters on what she'd do as commander in chief.
