Chutzpah

Posted by lex, on May 24, 2006

In yesterday’s WSJ, White House staffer Peter Wehner has the unmitigated gall to challenge the emergently conventional wisdom on Iraq – Chiefly that, 1) The president lied us into to war, 2) the administration pressured intelligence professionals to bias their judgments in favor of the war, 3) the failure to find WMD proves Saddam posed no threat, “imminent” or otherwise, and 4) finally, that the goal of promoting democracy in the heart of the Arab Middle East was a post-war rationalization, made up on the fly after that whole “WMD thing” didn’t pan out.

He does so by trotting out fact after tedious fact, a tactic that’s bound to drive partisan critics into spittle-flecked rage. There’s nothing really new here of course, just common sense and history lessons, so it won’t change any minds that are already closed made up, or open the eyes of the wilfully obtuse.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex