The usual suspects are both cheerleading and decrying the Veteran’s Day speech President George W. Bush made that assailed those (including specifically “some Democrats”) who are ostensibly “rewriting history” with respect to the lead-up to the current war in Iraq.

The remarks of the President, who is already severely challenged on the credibility front, would carry a lot more weight if he had all of his facts straight and correct.

Given that the administration has “rewritten history” in the reasons for the war in Iraq, changing from speeches immediately before the war that mentioned democracy and freedom only once or twice while warning of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) tens of times in a speech to now claiming that the sole motivation regardless of any other concerns was to spread democracy, is it not more than a bit disingenuous to accuse others of rewriting history? (if you want exact statistics, I’ll go through the speeches at www.whitehouse.gov, but I think any reasonable person will share my recollection without dispute)

I started blogging in February of 2003, back when the “case for war” was being made, and the warbloggers of the time were breathlessly posting links to publicly available satellite photos of facilities in Iraq that if their house of cards conclusions had been real we would have been regaled with huge page-one headlines of how Iraq was on the verge of creating an armageddon of chemical, biological, AND nuclear weapons that were all combined in an evil melange intended to create the greatest amount of death and destruction.

Somehow, even though those cardhouses of extrapolation have proven to be completely wrong, the warbloggers continue with their apologistic explanations, when not attacking as unpatriotic those who question our collective decisions as a nation.

Does this mean I fully accept the narrative presented by the “Bush lied” crowd?

Nope.

I do not, unless they mean to say that Bush lied to himself.

I believe the administration saw what it wanted to see, and refused to listen to alternative viewpoints.

I have seen this so often in my 15 year career in the high-tech industry that it is an old, boring story for me now.

Hard data ignored, expert analysis discounted, the story is an old one not limited to governments nor to high-tech. Only the scope of the tragedies created highlight the differences in the indifference.

So, who is rewriting history?

Everyone.

I ask you, in the strongest terms, please, make your own judgments, don’t just memorize and repeat the talking points as a mantra. The world is far more complicated than short phrases can convey.

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The software Sony required to be installed to play many of their recent CD releases on PCs in order to “preserve their copyrights” and limit the number of copies of songs that can be made, something that has caused so much controversy because it is based upon rootkit techniques, infringes upon the copyright of the MP3 encoder used within the application.

Do as we say, not as we do?

Ouch… that’s gonna hurt in court.

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UPDATE: Apparently, Fox Television is reading the same playbook.

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Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has written on some unconventional leading indicators of economic health. While the individual cases noted in each instance may be discounted, in aggregate they may point to rough times ahead for the economy.

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John Cole at Balloon Juice posted a link to a satire in the Toronto Star referring to a modest proposal on resolving the CIA leak investigation despite obstruction of the investigation through the use of torture on Scooter Libby (if you have never read the original “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public” by Jonathan Swift, and apparently more than a few commenting to Cole’s post have not, I highly recommend it).

One of Cole’s regular readers was not amused:

Why is John Cole selling out to the left?

I’m a long-time reader. Balloon Juice used to sit in the “Essential Blogs� category in my blog links. I created a new category today: On Probation, to which I’ve relocated Balloon Juice.

You’ll be hearing from me on my relatively new blog in response to all your “Now be nice to those murdering terrorists, and be sure to read then their Miranda rights� postings.

Cole responded later in the comments:

Oh Good Christ Almighty.

If I thought we were 100% sure we were torturing only people who had or who were going to attack the United States, I would probably willingly join in on the torture. Hell, I might even come up with a few new torture methods beyond anything yet described.

For instance, I might tie the terrorist to a seat and make him read every comment posted here on this website.

But since we don’t know who they are or what they are, I would like to note a couple things:

1.) Torture is not as effective as other methods of extracting information.

2.) Many of the people we are hearing should be subjected to torture have turned out to be innocent.

3.) The vast majority of the people we have captured to date are low levels who have no information worth giving.

4.) Allowing for a policy of torture directly increases the chances that our soldiers and agents will be tortured.

5.) Torture is frowned upon by the vast majority of our allies.

6.) Apparently we already have tortured a number of people, to no real advantage.

7.) The public of the United States (you know, the folks that determine the government) seems to be largely opposed to torture.

Putting aside all those reasons, and I am sure a number I have missed, let me just point out one other reason we shouldn’t torture.

IT’S FUCKING WRONG.

Regular readers here already are aware that I agree with Cole on this particular topic. What is interesting is the response of some to any statement that torture is morally wrong. Somehow, being against the use of torture by our government is immediately associated with “selling out to the left” and is calling for “mollycoddling” of those captured. See the above points made by Cole for how truly simple-minded that reaction truly is.

John Cole is right, torture is fucking wrong, and I am forced to question the humanity of those who are calling for it to be institutionalized within our government, which it will be if any law we pass has “exceptions” allowing it, regardless of the limitations imposed.

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