HEH: “They Were For Dissent And Alternative Analysis Before They Were Against It.” All of this focus on prewar intelligence by Sens. Levin and Rockefeller is just more of the antiwar historical revisionism that I’ve noted in the past, designed to give Democrats who voted for the war some protective cover between now and 2008. Though “vote for us, we’re gullible” seems like a weak slogan.
UPDATE: It’s a bad slogan — but an appropriate one — for the Washington Post, too, which seems to have been misidentifying Carl Levin’s quotes as coming from the DoD Inspector General. Oops! From the WaPo correction:
References to Feith’s office producing “reporting of dubious quality or reliability” and that the office “was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda” were from a report issued by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in Oct. 2004. Similarly, the quotes stating that Feith’s office drew on “both reliable and unreliable reporting” to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq “that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC [Intelligence Community] and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration” were also from Levin’s report. The article also stated that the intelligence provided by Feith’s office supported the political views of senior administration officials, a conclusion that the inspector general’s report did not draw.
Can anyone play this game? And Stephen Spruiell observes:
As I write this, Chris Matthews is peddling the phony WaPo scoop on Hardball, prattling on about how this report proves that Doug Feith “cooked the intel” to get us into war.
Oops. Will Matthews apologize on his next show?
ANOTHER UPDATE: More from Jules Crittenden: “If the Pentagon doubted what the intel agencies were telling them, and said so, I’m not particularly surprised. I’m glad they weren’t just sitting around allowing themselves to be spoon-fed analysis by people with a pretty poor track record.”