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More fuel for the spirited debates and let's keep it civil...

KERRY, EDWARDS & COMPANY: HAVE THEY FORGOTTEN?
If Democrats are going to continue to beat up President Bush over the WMD question, don't you think it's time for their leading contenders, Sen. Kerry and Edwards, to give an accounting on this matter as well?
President Bush has repeatedly asserted that Congress had access to the same intelligence information he did. As far as I know, neither
Kerry nor Edwards have denied that. So, perhaps they should tell us why on earth they and other Democrats voted for that dastardly resolution authorizing war against Iraq.
We need to know specifically how they analyzed this intelligence data. Did they think it was much ado about nothing? If so, then they really have some explaining to do, in light of their subsequent
statements, as to why they so casually authorized a war. They are much more vulnerable here than President Bush, yet no one is making them answer. Let's get them on "Meet the Press" to explain their reversal.
Sen. Kerry has claimed that he only intended that President Bush use that authority as a last resort and after exhausting all efforts to bring in other nations and the United Nations.
Let's ignore the convenient revisionism here and, for the sake of argument, take him at his word. Why would he authorize the military action at all if the WMD threat did not exist? You see, his supposed
reservations had only to do with "unilateralism," not the nature of the threat Iraq posed. If he is changing his story now and saying the threat did not exist, he needs to explain why he voted for the resolution.
Oh, sure, congressional Democrats can say President Bush exaggerated the data, but if he did, they would have known about it, having access to the same information. Why didn't they say so at the time they voted for the resolution? Better yet, why didn't they vote against it?
But they didn't cry exaggeration at the time, and they did vote for the resolution. So we may assume either that they agreed with Bush's assessment of the threat or that they disagreed but didn't have the
political courage to resist a popular president seeking authority to attack a brutal dictator, when a significant majority of the public supported this action.
So let's be honest, if President Bush lied about the threat, so did Democrats in Congress, including Kerry and Edwards. If he exaggerated the threat, those Democrats were inspirators in the act. If he made a mistake in attacking Iraq based on available intelligence, so did Kerry and Edwards.
Many Democrats have also said that the president pressured the intelligence agencies to trump up the WMD threat. But weapons inspector David Kay made it abundantly clear that his investigation revealed just
the opposite. And CIA Director Tenet was even more emphatic in denying the administration tried improperly to influence his agents.
Are these critics saying that David Kay, George Tenet, President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are all lying about this? And what evidence do they have to support this claim? None.
They are just hoping to benefit by all the distrust and confusion their nonstop charges have caused, expecting never to have to back up their
allegations as long as they can keep the president on the defensive.
Who is being more presidential here? President Bush is standing by his decision to assert leadership and attack Iraq. The Democrats are backtracking and attacking Bush to score political points and to conceal
their own complicity in the decision.
Who is being more consistent? These Democrats were ready to attack Iraq at the time; now they say it was a mistake. They changed, not President Bush. It was expedient for them to support Bush at the time
because an overwhelming majority of the public supported him. It is expedient now, during the presidential primaries, to change their
position, because the anti-war position is resonating with their exercised base.
When you think about it, it's outrageous that President Bush has to spend so much time answering these bogus, partisan-driven charges when he
needs to be focusing on the War on Terror and other problems confronting the nation.
These Democrats should have to explain why they are expending more energy attacking and undermining the one man trying to lead the world against the terrorists who are determined to destroy it, than in helping him to defeat those terrorists. They should have to explain why they, in anticipation of Nov. 2, 2004, seem to have forgotten Sept. 11, 2001.
--By David Limbaugh © 2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

What baffles me to no end, is how so many people act like deposing Saddam's regime was somehow an evil act, since we never found what we thought he had. Historically, he not only had the weapons we thought he possessed, but USED them against the Kurds, the Shiites, and the Iranians. The opposition states that he had allowed weapons inspectors to search inside Iraq at their will, but he only said that mere weeks before the war started, and had made those assurances before, only to break his word as he had since he first gave it to secure a cease fire at the end of Desert Storm. I for one still agree with what Wesley Clark said (Sept.'02, not the revisionist crap he's been spouting lately, pretending no one has access to audio-visual recording/playback equipment) We were justified to attack Iraq based solely on the fact that he NEVER honored the terms of the cease fire, the suspicion of WMD just lent an urgency to the action. And if we need someone to blame, why not blame the man who kicked the weapons inspectors out in 1996? But no, the Democrats are far too busy playing partisan games with issues that continue to affect our security. Like Saddam was KNOWN to possess these weapons, he USED them! So just where did they go??????? But rather than try to find the smoking gun, we will vilify the person who finally had the sand to do something about it.

I've been enjoying my Valentine's weekend with my honey. Also enjoying an Opus Super Beli, a La Gloria series R, a nice Padron 2000, and a Flor De Oliva Grand Maduro......

Don't generally do much chatter on weekends if you noticed, and I'm working today to continually make the database that your newspapers get some of their best pictures, the best and fastest in the world. I read and respond to this later.

careful there, charlie -- your boy dubya's been getting some serious dirty looks from his party members for how his administration has been "worse than a democrat" at pumping up Big Govt.! :)