On CNN tonight some analyst from the New York Memes made their case that the traitor who selectively leaked Republican-damaging information from a top secret National Intelligence Estimate was by way of merely informing us about what a godawful mess the Iraq War puts us in. Sorta like, oh I don’t know… Vietnam. Oh the nobility of it all. It appears that, well… the damned enemy is fighting back. Who knew?
Like, if only we’d just stayed out of Iraq, Al Qaeda and the Mullahs would’ve folded like a cheap suit, and we’d be right back in the world of 9/10. And this clever pundit goes on to express the hard-won “opinion” that the only reason the administration released the NIE was that they’d have been more embarassed had they attempted to “cover it up”. The release, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that the full judgment of the NIE blows the NYT’s case into more pieces than there are grains of sand on the world’s beaches.
Never mind, in other words, that the NYT made up its mind years ago that Iraq was a “mess”, and have been selling the same story issue after issue. Simplifies the whole daunting task of publication if you don’t have to actually keep up with what’s going on. Just trot out the reliable old meme.
I am actually shocked that anyone is still trying to push the idea that the NIE was damaging for the President’s foreign policy. As I’ve pointed out before, the declassified NIE summary (as opposed to the cherry-picked leaks from that summary) was actually quite supportive of what the President has been telling us about the war in Iraq and the war on terror.
But, I guess some people just believe what they want to believe.