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I used to like March 19th...

Cheers and Jeers: Wednesday

Wed Mar 19, 2014 at 05:17 AM PDT
by Bill in Portland Maine

I used to like March 19th

Not so much anymore. It's the day Republicans shot our country in the face and expected a parade of sweets and flowers for it.

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

As its architects and cheerleaders---assisted by a still-fawning press that always has room for them in the Sunday morning lineups---try to rehabilitate their images by crapping out falsehood-riddled books sprinkled with revisionist fairy dust, let's remember what they really said as it all went down. Please feel free to hurl rotten tomatoes as you see fit...

On Sept. 7, 2002, [Judith Miller] and fellow New York Times reporter Michael Gordon reported that Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb." As proof, she cited unnamed "American intelligence experts" and unnamed "Bush administration officials." Subsequently, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all pointed to Miller’s story as justification for war. On April 22, 2003, she told PBS’s Newshour that WMD had already been found in Iraq: "Well, I think they found something more than a ’smoking gun.’"
---Think Progress

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof---the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
---George W. Bush (10/7/02)

"We’re not going to have a bloodletting of trading American bodies for Iraqi bodies." "We will win this conflict. We will win it easily."
---John McCain (9/29/02 and 1/22/03)

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
---Colin Powell, United Nations Speech (2/5/03)

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." ... "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
---Dick Cheney (8/28/02) and (3/16/03)

"[T]he area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
---Donald Rumsfeld (3/30/03)


George W. Bush
"Those WMDs must be around
here somewhere. HehHehHeh..."

Bush Jokes about WMD

"There's a certain amount of pop psychology in America that the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular."
---Bill Kristol (4/1/03)

"We're all neocons now."
---Chris Matthews (4/9/03), typical of the many Democratic war enablers who blew with the political winds and later became doves of convenience when everything went to shit.

"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals."
---Charles Krauthammer (4/19/03)

Ted Koppel: [Y]ou’re not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is going to be done for $1.7 billion?
Andrew Natsios [Agency for International Development]: Well, in terms of the American taxpayer's contribution, I do. This is it for the U.S.
---Nightline (4/23/03)

And six years ago today, as the sands were running out of the Bush presidency's hourglass, the biggest war hawk of them all finally dropped all pretense on national TV:

Martha Raddatz: Two-third of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.
Cheney: So?
Martha Raddatz: So? You don’t care what the American people think?
Cheney: No.

And as if the staggering loss of life---both military and civilian---wasn't bad enough, there's this little stat that popped up last year:

Minimum amount of time that taxpayers will be paying costs associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: 100 years
(Source: AP analysis)

And what of Commander Codpiece? Today he spends his time painting pictures of dogs and Jay Leno in the bathtub, virtually excommunicated from the party that once marched in lockstep behind him and his giant bulge. He oughtta be painting license plates in Leavenworth.

So, yeah. Not a big fan of March 19th anymore. How's your day going?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/19/1285712/-Cheers-and-Jeers-Wednesday