Charlie Rose becomes Hillary’s campaign spokesman and Chris Wallace screws up

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CBS This Morning was on the screen (I almost said “tube”) this morning and I watched an exchange between Charlie Rose and John Dickerson.  Rose introduced the topic as Marco Rubio being the latest GOP candidate  to “run into trouble” this morning over his comments about the Iraq war. There clearly is a herd mentality out there among the media to play the gotcha game regarding Iraq. Rose played a video clip between Chris Wallace and Marco Rubio in which Wallace asks Rubio “Was the Iraq war a mistake?”

Rubio answered properly that it wasn’t a mistake at the time. Wallace wouldn’t have any of it. He insisted on Rubio admitting it was a mistake or it wasn’t a mistake. Rubio wouldn’t back down.

“It was not a mistake for the President to go into Iraq based on the intelligence he as provided.”

Correct answer.

Then the smartass Rose then asks Dickerson “Why is this so difficult?”

Dickerson then makes a stupid argument. He argues that Iraq was a mistake because the country, having been polluted by democrats running away from their votes for the war and hypocritically raging against the war, now thinks it was a mistake. It is as though the arbiter of national security policy is current  popular opinion.

Gayle King then asked Dickerson what he thought the best answer to the question would be and to his credit Dickerson largely supported Rubio. He said that one should “go back to the moment” and that “Bush was faced with very difficult decision” and he had to chose between “two bad options” – doing nothing or allowing Saddam to coordinate with terrorists.

Again, correct, more or less. But that is pretty much what Rubio said. And he did say that GOP candidates need to “take people back in time” and consider the decision in the context of history.

Then Charlie Rose takes on the mantle of Hillary Clinton spokesman.

“I don’t understand why they have a hard time saying ‘if we didn’t know there were no weapons of mass destruction there we wouldn’t have gone in.”  I think that’s Hillary Clinton’s position. That’s Hillary Clinton’s position” sputtered Rose.

There it is. Why can’t the GOP candidates just be like Hillary?

Well, let’s see what Hillary was like. Back before history was changed by democrats, she was in favor of the Iraq war- very much in favor of it.

“I believe the facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt,” she said on the Senate floor. “Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people, even his own family members, to maintain his iron grip on power. He used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and on Iranians, killing over 20,000 people.”

And she added:

Mrs. Clinton declared that Saddam, “left unchecked … will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”

There’s lots more at the link.

Two years later, she defended that vote:

“Obviously, I’ve thought about that a lot in the months since,” she said. “No, I don’t regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade.”

It was then that she began to rewrite history:

But she said the Bush administration’s short-circuiting of the U.N. weapons inspection process didn’t permit “the inspectors to finish whatever task they could have accomplished to demonstrate one way or the other what was there.”

And

The consensus was the same, from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration,” she said. “It was the same intelligence belief that our allies and friends around the world shared.

“But I think that in the case of the [Bush] administration, they really believed it. They really thought they were right, but they didn’t let enough sunlight into their thinking process to really have the kind of debate that needs to take place when a serious decision occurs like that.”

Two years before?

But perhaps she didn’t fully believe the intelligence, the top-secret briefings. Wait, she did: “Now this much is undisputed.” Undisputed. Saddam had WMDs, had used them against his own people, was a serious threat to the world. Or so she said.

And as her Presidential campaign geared up, she had done a 180:

“I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong,” she wrote — in 2014.

Curious how the left would support for President someone who “got it wrong” and revile George Bush for doing the same- assuming you believed it was a mistake. Our own Word has provided readers with more than ample proof that it wasn’t a mistake. None of it.

Just for fun, let’s throw in a few more quotes:

“Almost no one disagrees with these basic facts. That he has weapons of mass destruction and that he is doing everything in his power to get nuclear weapons.”
–Sen. John Edwards, Sept. 12, 2002

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaeda members.”
–Sen. Hillary Clinton, Oct. 10, 2002

“Saddam Hussein certainly has chemical and biological weapons. There’s no question about that.”
–Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Nov. 17, 2002

“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
–Sen. Edward Kennedy, Sept. 27, 2003

“If we wait for the danger to become clear, it could be too late.”
–Sen. Joseph Biden, Sept. 4, 2002

And let’s once again visit Hillary’s thoughts about the Iraq war back in 2004:

She conceded that making such decisions is “very tough” for the occupant of the Oval Office.

Indeed.

Jonah Goldberg points out that of all the potential Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton is most responsible for the Iraq war.

The weird thing is, Ms. Clinton has far more responsibility for the Iraq War than Jeb Bush does. Meanwhile, none of the potential GOP presidential hopefuls voted for the war in 2002. Scott Walker was the Milwaukee County executive; Marco Rubio was in the Florida House of Representatives; Chris Christie was a U.S. district attorney;Ted Cruz was a policy wonk at the Federal Trade Commission; Rand Paul and Ben Carson were practicing surgeons. And so on.

Of course, one could argue that many would have voted for the war (probably true of Mr. Rubio, probably untrue of Mr. Paul). But that’s all hypothetical. Not so with Ms. Clinton. She voted for it, defended it in the well of the Senate, and arguably lost the primaries in 2008 because she refused to apologize for her vote.

Charlie Rose has lately been an active Hillary Clinton protector:

On Tuesday night, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to report on the latest scandal involving possible 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton over her exclusive use of a private email account while she was Secretary of State in what may have been a violation of federal law.

During the coverage of the matter on the CBS Evening News, substitute anchor Charlie Rose flashed his liberal bias for his dear “friend” Hillary Clinton by wondering to CBS News political director John Dickerson: “Why is this story getting so much attention?”

It’s pretty obvious that admitting the Iraq war was a mistake is now the media’s litmus test and it’s not just stupid, it’s colossally stupid. I am bitterly disappointed that Chris Wallace would engage is such idiocy.

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I don’t think it is idiocy for Wallace or anyone else to ask such a question; it is a good test of the candidate to see how they react. The main problem is that NO ONE can ask such a question of Hillary, even if they wanted to… which, of course, most of the corrupt media does not.

Above all else, that is what the media should be talking about; how all the Republican candidates have the nuts (even Fiorina) to face the hostile left wing media while Hillary stays in her redoubt only speaking to hand-picked sycophants.

In fact, why doesn’t someone ask Hillary why her husband sat back, going all Caligula in the oval office, instead of dealing with al Qaeda and Iraq, since they ADMIT they realized the threat they posed?

Democrats, including Hillary, spent the last many years avoiding doing anything, taking any stand in terms of legislation or budget.
They abdicated to a Dem president who might, at any time, legislate via presidental order or presidential memo.
For liberal media types to try to force a stand out of Republican candidates is hypocrisy of the highest order.
Dems wasted years when they could have ”put their money where their mouth was,” by, instead, doing nothing in Congress.
This weird type of questionings is just liberals latest attempt to control the narrative in their own favor.

Nan the Dems had control of Congress for exactly 2 years. They were constantly being stymied by GOP Senate filibusters.
The “faulty intelligence” meme doesn’t ring true. The Bush white House got what it demanded from the CIA and in exchange for that cooked intelligence the Director of the CIA received the highest Medal available to a civilian The Presidential Medal of Freedom. If his intel product was that bad why did he get the highest medal available? Does anyone who posts here think he deserved a medal for that intel?
The Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 contained the phrase

@John:

Bush did not lie. Bush cooked nothing.

Feel free to familiarize yourself with any of word’s numerous posts on this topic.

@Bill:

The question that should be asked is, “Would you make a different decision having the information we have now?”

@John: John, “cooked intelligence”, really?? Please prove this outrageous accusation. Bush did NOT lie!! If he did then prove yourself!! Otherwise your just a liar!!

@John: First off, you are completely wrong. Democrats had TOTAL control for two years, in which they did NOTHING but pass a failed “stimulus” and the Abysmal Care Act. They could have repaired the economy, if they had any clue how, but instead they tried to consolodate their hold on government. They failed and lost the majority in the House, but still could (or should have) enact legislation. At this point, only two years into Obama’s reign of ignorance, Harry Reid put the brakes on any and all legislation that he and Obama didn’t like.

The “faulty intelligence” meme doesn’t ring true.

Go to Wordsmith’s excellent account, “The Lie That Bush Created ISIS”.

If you feel the intelligence was cooked, then you certainly believe Bill and Hillary, Kerry, Pelosi, Edwards, Schumer, Kennedy, Albright and others were in on the cooking, right? Please respond to this question with an answer and don’t take the cowardly route of ignoring the difficulty it poses for your continued clinging to your lies.

@Nanny G: Obama had great success running for President without any record to hinder him. For liberal lemmings, never having accomplished anything did not dissuade them from putting him in the White House without vetting; since he had done NOTHING, he had done nothing BAD (as Gore and Kerry had) and, thus, had no baggage to tote, like Hillary does now.

Ability and accomplishment, leadership ability and experience means nothing to liberals. Like any good socialist, all that matters is an ardent adherence to ideology.

@John: You don’t do “Maths” very well, do you, John? 2007-2011 is FOUR years.

Bill Clinton said “regime change” was needed in Iraq, because every high ranking Democrat said Saddam had WMDs. George Bush made it happen.
Be careful what you wish for, Lefties.

@Common Sense: I think you doth protest too much. The simple truth lies in the quotes from the Dem leaders (idiots) who voted for before they voted against, as the author provides in this article. Their words … damning as can be. No other proof needed.

@John: What a tool !! Go ahead, keep drinking the kool-aid.

Foresight says – any non-liberal or Non – progressive needs to either memorize the Quotes from Various High ranking DEMOCRATs who at the time AND BEFORE were in FULL accordance with the overall opinion, and injected THEIR opinion, about Saddam H and his intentions…
Or they should have them typed (there are just too many of them to remember) and laminated at the ready to whip out with the words….”and I quote’ …I can see this argument cropping up over and over again (against conservatives) in the future. They need to be prepared…

with what is known now, you go but you win it and secure it before turning it over to a Dimocrat.