What is it with the left's "Bush lied, people died"?

It's almost axiomatic that the New York Times would never publish a piece defending the left wing meme that "Bush lied, people died" so it's to the credit of the left-leaning Washington Post that they do.

The Washington Post must understand that it is the one that will become America's leading paper if the 'paper of record', the NYT, continues is parlous spiral into irrelevance. The NYT blames its decline on the 'new media' but it's much more likely that readers are getting sick of the massive pro-Democratic Party stance the paper takes. Thus, the editorial pages of the Washington Post are generally quite reasonable and balanced.

Search the Internet for "Bush Lied" products, and you will find sites that offer more than a thousand designs. The basic "Bush Lied, People Died" bumper sticker is only the beginning.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," he said.

There's no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush's claims about Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda "were substantiated by the intelligence assessments," and statements regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qaeda "were substantiated by intelligence information." The report is left to complain about "implications" and statements that "left the impression" that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

In the report's final section, the committee takes issue with Bush's statements about Saddam Hussein's intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?

After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: "There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

Rockefeller was reminded of that statement by the committee's vice chairman, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who with three other Republican senators filed a minority dissent that includes many other such statements from Democratic senators who had access to the intelligence reports that Bush read. The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report's preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, "the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers' statements were substantiated by the intelligence."

Why does it matter, at this late date? The Rockefeller report will not cause a spike in "Bush Lied" mug sales, and the Bond dissent will not lead anyone to scrape the "Bush Lied" bumper sticker off his or her car.

But the phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

For the next president, it may be Iran's nuclear program, or al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, or, more likely, some potential horror that today no one even imagines. When that time comes, there will be plenty of warnings to heed from the Iraq experience, without the need to fictionalize more.

Now that is a pretty damning assessment of not only Rockefeller himself but also the lunatics who think that Bush did lie or that the war was all about oil. Current oil prices make that last idea somewhat preposterous don't they?

However, the real key is in the last three paragraphs. In the same way that billions of dollars are being diverted into the bogus area of climate change remediation meaning that they are not available to be put to better use on water projects etc in developing nations, the passing off of the shocking failure of Western intelligence agencies about the true extent of Saddam's WMD program as a 'lie' will mean that those agencies do not suffer the intense scrutiny that they should. The fact that Saddam had his own senior advisers and military leaders duped about his WMD program is no excuse.

What's also notable is that while the left runs around bleating about the President lying the country into a war that cost tens of thousands of people their lives they completely ignore the millions of people that die each year due to the left's own campaign against the use of DDT.

What about this? "The left lied, millions died."

Or this? "Mao didn't lie, 60 million died."

Or this? "Che lived, hundreds died."

More people died at the hands of the left in the 20th century than have been killed in all religious wars through history. In fact, Stalin topped that number by himself without having to add in the massive number of dead in Mao's China. As I've said before, I reckon that the left will cause the death of more people in the 21st century with their radical environmentalism than they pushed into early graves in the 20th.

The left likes labels and slogans and "Bush lied, people died" is just the current fashion. No doubt once Bush is gone from office they will come up with a new one.

(Nothing Follows)