The difference between Bush lies and Clinton’s is a matter of lying under oath. Clearly Bush didn’t. His only oath was to uphold the Constitution as President and Commander in chief. He had done that by going, however reluctantly, to Congress for approval, which he received regardless of the underlying nuances. Still, he did go to the UN for further acceptance, in one respect it was an ultimatum.

The irony of all this is that he did not as commander in chief need do either; for, the cease-fire of the Gulf War had been violated many times and it would have been his right to police the cease fire of an existing war, ending once and for all unending infractions with the strategy to force an unconditional surrender and unseat Saddam from power. However, a dictator’s obduracy is insufficient grounds to invade a country under these circumstances, lest Bush really look like a warmonger. Thus, he chose the path of unbelievable pre-conditioned deception in exaggerating and dramatizing the threat.

Notwithstanding this deception, it is not impeachable, even if deliberate, which it was, because Bush could easily claim that the disinformation was to confuse the enemy in Iraq, not — lest the strategy be leaked — the Congress and the American people. Nor is incompetence reason for impeachment — in this case clearly exposed — as Lincoln was thought of as incompetent in the early years of the Civil War until he routinely fired his generals until he found the right one. Bush could have been Lincolnesque except he is loyal to a fault to those who slavishly follow his commands and feed him misinformation on the status of combat, just as he had intensely misled them for the invasion in the first place.

Accountability also is unimpeachable, even though he admits he was misled by Intelligence but would have gone to war anyway! And he would quickly point out that John Kerry said the same thing!

Besides, whatever the motivation for war — oil, humanitarian, neo-con pressure, his image of the bullhorn fading, or simply to spite his father — his defense against impeachment is convincing because he cannot be held accountable for the unaccountability of the real demons, Congress and the American people, for embarrassingly not seeing through the duplicity.

Copyright © 2005 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: December 16, 2005.

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