Roger L. Simon: The Grinch Who Tried to Steal Fitzmas

Sez the Worstest Screenwriter in the World:

The odd thing about this is that it has always struck me that Iraq could just as easily have been a Democratic Party war. Despite his present ultra-dovish position, Gore, who has often been a foreign policy hawk during his career, might easily have led the nation into the Iraq War had he been elected. His opinions now are dictated, in part, by his current constituency. This is no more than normal human behavior.

Christ, Roger, what's the basis for this drivel? Then-Senator Gore broke with his party -- one of only ten Democrats to do so -- and voted for a resolution supporting the Gulf War in 1991.

Does that sound like someone beholden to his then-constituency (who supported the war) or, for that matter, his colleagues?

As the for the run-up to the war, in looking back I think it was a big game of charades that everybody understood.

Okay, four words, piece of shit movie that was so comically awful that it forced Bette Midler into hiding and Pauline Kael into retirement... Yes! Scenes from a Mall!

Despite what was said, the obvious US motivation was geo-political.

No one told Condi, for some reason. Unless, of course, "mushroom cloud" is conservoblogger-speak for "spread of democracy at the point of a gun." Because that would be a pretty bitchin' game of charades, no?

We wanted the despot Saddam out of the Middle East and replaced by a democracy. The French and the Russians - never particularly interested in democracy in the first place - desperately wanted to keep their cash cow in office. Everybody knew this, so the dreaded WMDs had to be emphasized in front of the UN.

Revisionist Mr. Simon is claiming, it seems, that WMDs were never the point. But what about this:

Multiple visits to the CIA by the United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, created an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments on Iraq fit with Bush Administration policy objectives, intelligence officials said.
They said Mr Cheney and his chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby, questioned analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al-Qaeda.

Mr Cheney took the lead in the Administration last August in advocating military action against Iraq by claiming it had weapons of mass destruction.

We're open-minded types, and would be willing to consider that, yes, perhaps the ultimate goal of the Administration was the spread of democracy in the Middle East. But, as the above demonstrates, that task was not first on the list. It was a distant that-would-be-just-gravy second.

Never mind that whether Saddam had nuclear and other such weapons now or later was essentially irrelevant as long as he was in power and able to use them...

Sorry, what? Hussein with [the imaginary] nukes was irrelevant? Are we missing something? Did Cheryl slip a mickey into your latte, Roger?

...never mind the supposedly missing weapons could be hidden at this moment in Syria, Lebanon or Iran (or even Iraq of course)...

These are some mighty thin straws yer grasping at, Simon. If you don't mind, we'd like to pitch a new series to NBC: Desperate Screenwriters. Won't play well in the red states, but whatever...

...never mind that there actually is a fledgling democracy in Iraq seemingly applauded by a vast majority of Iraqis

The two operative -- and by operative, we mean bullshit -- words there are "fledging" and "seemingly."

Of course the real mistake was this emphasis on WMDs instead of a more honest declaration of the what the war was really about - democracy. On that score it hasn't fared that badly, all things considered.

"All things", we hope, encompasses 2,000 dead Americans [which K-Lo just helpfully reminded us is not not not a milestone, and don't you forget it!] and who knows how many dead Iraqis. But we're pretty certain we know where Simon's priorities lie, and it ain't with the corpses.

UPDATE: Counting, we never quite mastered it...