Here's a newly minted bit of MSM groupthink that needs to be stamped out before it congeals into conventional wisdom: that only people on the left are upset about the way the White House used lies and deception to lead us into a reckless and unnecessary war. A sub-version of this is that the only people upset about Judy Miller and Plamegate are anti-war types who care about the role Miller and the neocons played in helping the Bush White House market the war.
This nugget first hit my radar screen Tuesday night. I was on CNN being interviewed by Aaron Brown (in my experience, one of the best interviewers in the business), when, to my surprise, he suddenly suggested that "a lot of the animosity that's being directed towards Ms. Miller, a lot of the hits she's taken...are just simply coming from the left, people opposed to the war...[and] what was clearly flawed reporting leading up to the war."
I thought it was an isolated incident. But there I was this morning, still on my first venti latte, reading Howard Kurtz's column, when I came upon the nugget again. After quoting Miller's assertion that people are "upset about the war in Iraq, about the Bush administration; they want to know whether they were misled into this war," Kurtz wrote: "She's right... the passion, especially on the left, is driven by the war."
So what are you saying guys -- that only lefties "want to know whether they were misled into this war"? And that those on the right are perfectly okay with being lied to?
Nonsense.
Some of the strongest opponents of the war in Iraq are on the right -- people like Bill Buckley, Pat Buchanan, and conservatives in Congress like Sen. Chuck Hagel, and Rep. Walter Jones. They too are pretty "upset" and "passionate" about the war.
So is Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell's chief of staff, who spoke yesterday about how the Cheney/Rumsfeld "cabal" hijacked US foreign policy and "courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran."
Here's the bottom line: a recent poll showed that 50 percent of Americans say Congress should consider impeaching Bush if it turns out he "did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq." Fifty percent -- they can't all be card carrying members of MoveOn.
So come on Aaron and Howie (and anyone else preparing to pick up the thread), let's put an end to this "it's only the left" stuff here and now.
That dog won't hunt.