I made the briefest of mentions last week of the Senate Intelligence Committee “report” purporting to “prove” that President Bush “lied the country into war” in Iraq after all.  I could have shot it down like the tiresome old skeet it is, but I just didn’t have the time or inclination.  Even sport fishing with power saws loses its appeal eventually, and this point became moot years ago.

Fortunately, Fred Hiatt did the honors for me:

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The President’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The President’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

This is the same “intelligence information” that Senator Rockefeller himself saw and led him to conclude:

To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.

Rocky saw the same intel as Bush, reached the same conclusion, and endorsed the President’s decision to invade.  The intel has been substantiated six ways from Sunday by now, but Rocky and the majority Dems still insist Bush lied, even though their own report proves otherwise.

Upon further reflection, though, I don’t think this is entirely Bushophobic history editing.  A former Blog Talk Radio admiral identifies what I consider the key bullet point:

[The Rockefeller indicment] also sets a bar so high for action on intelligence that its absorption could paralyze the US in confronting threats until far too late.

I think the Left has decided that they would rather America absorb attack after attack after attack than do anything in advance to prevent said attacks from happening.  The idea of the U.S. being proactive instead of reactive, defeating our enemies before they can destroy us, making itself as invincible as humanly possible, is anathema to them.  They are going to pacify America, turn us into a nation of sheep, no matter what it takes, no matter what it costs, and no matter how many of us have to die at jihadi hands.

Paralysis definitely suits those purposes.  So does completely disemboweling the U.S. military, which Barack Hussein Obama definitely intends to do.  And they’re going to try and make sure that nobody like George W. Bush can EVER get his hands on the presidency EVER again.

When Rocky and Barry and their ilk are finished, America will be a gigantic, irradiated, subjugated, dhimmized Luxembourg.

Funny how that’s the only way the “international community” will “love” us.

UPDATE (6/10): Here’s what we mean by paralysis:

Running across [senate race rival Alan] Keyes at a parade in the North Side of the city one weekend, Obama rushed over and tried to talk with him. Obama is someone who loathes conflict, and thought he could have a reasonable discussion with this man who had been hurling hateful invective at him. “Barack thinks he can win over anyone,” [Obama Senate campaign manager] Jim Cauley observed. “He thinks he can go into a roomful of skinheads and come out with all their votes.”

I can’t help making a couple of observations:

(1) If BO “loathes” conflict, why in the Sam Hill did he get into politics?

(2) The last time we had such a president, he threw our closest Middle East ally besides Israel - the Shah of Iran - under the bus, leading to fifty-three Americans spending 444 days as involuntary “guests” of the newly installed Iranian mullahgarchy, an incompetent, botched rescue attempt that miraculously didn’t get them all killed, total American humiliation, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and near check-mate in the Cold War.

(3) And now his ideological son wants to crawl to Tehran and grovel before our ex-embassy staff’s jailer - the man who believes he’s been called by Allah to “wipe Israel off the map” and bring back the Twelfth Imam by plunging the world into nuclear Armageddon - because ”he thinks he can win over anyone”.  And when all that tonguing encourages the mullahs’ atomic endgame?  What will a president who “loathes conflict” do?

Has your deodorant failed yet?  Or, as Aaron Eckhart quips in The Core after telling a panel of government and military brass that the world is going to end, “Feel free to throw up. I know I did.”

Everybody thought McCain’s “Obama is running for Jimmy Carter’s second term” from yesterday was just a clever line.  How I wish that were all it was.

[cross-posted at ]