I’m beginning to see…

I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

To show you what kind of pattern I’m seeing, let’s start back in the year 1998. Starting at least as far back as that, and for at least 4 years, Democrats were noting that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction–the weapons themselves and the programs–had to be dealt with. They had to be diminished or removed. You’ve no doubt seen the web pages and perhaps the roving E-mails that enumerate these quotes from Democrats. (Click here to get a Google’s worth of them.) A host of Democrats endorsed this idea; that Hussein had both weapons and active programs. Names include; Dianne Feinstein, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Bill Clinton, Robert Byrd, Wesley Clark, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi. And that’s just the start. There are more.

However, when someone wanted to act on those intentions, suddenly virtually all of these people shifted their stance and claimed that Hussein didn’t, and never had, these WMDs. To prove it, they sent in weapons inspectors, who came out pretty much empty-handed. (Empty-handed in terms of physical evidence. There were a large number of weapons that Saddam was documented to have earlier, but did not document when the inspectors showed up, so there was no evidence of their use or destruction. So no physical evidence, but there was a sort of evidence by the lack of accounting for what was known to have existed.)

Now, whether you believe they were never there, or that they are there and are hidden, or if you think they were shipped off to Syria & Iran while we sat on our hands and debated, the point is that most of these folks turned around and, when the inspectors didn’t find anything, said, “See, I told you so!”. Which, of course, they hadn’t. In fact, right up until George W. Bush started actually doing what he said he’d do, these folks didn’t change their tune. (On those web sites, you’ll see quotes as late as October, 2002.) It wasn’t until Bush decided to take action based on this information–that everybody was talking about, not just Bush administration officials–that they turned around and said that Bush lied about it all. Again, even though what Bush said was entirely in line with what they had been saying for years.

But they won’t own up to it. It’s easier, and plays to your wingnut base, to just intone, “Bush LIED!” and not have to deal with the consequences of your words.

Here’s another great example of this. Nancy Pelosi, on June 5th, 2004, said that Porter Goss was independent of political pressure and, should he be nominated for the head of the CIA, she’s support him. Two months later, however, when he was nominated, she did a quick 180.

“But I will say what I said before is that there shouldn’t – a person should not be the director of central intelligence who’s acted in a very political way when we’re dealing with the safety of the American people,” she told CNN.

“Intelligence has to be the gathering and analysis and dissemination of information, of intelligence, without any political, any politics involved at all,” Pelosi added.

She says, “I will say what I said before”, and then goes on to say something completely different than what she said before. Very similar to saying “I told you so” about WMDs when, in fact, you didn’t.

Which brings us to today. The big issue today is Social Security, and the Democrats are falling all over themselves insisting that this program is not in a financial crisis. But that’s not what they’ve said in the past.

In 1998, here’s what President Bill Clinton had to say about Social Security. “This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation.” (You can find more of that speech covered here, and you can find further Social Security crisis quotes from the former President here.) Crisis? Really? That’s what he believed. And so he came up with a political slogan, “Save Social Security first”, that was dutifully repeated and supported by a lot of names that you’ll recognize, and which will give you a distinct sense of deja vu; Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer.

I’m beginning to see a pattern here, and it’s one that involves telling the Big Lie over and over until people believe you’ve always thought that, and hope they don’t do their own research. This time around, though, it’s aided and abetted by bloggers such as Joshua Micah Marshall who agrees that nothing need be done about a crisis that Bill Clinton noted 7 years ago. This is posturing and partisanship at its absolute worst.

But it’s a pattern. Should we really be surprised?

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