Liberal Journalists Have No Shame or Compassion

Will Malven
28 December 2006

It never ceases to amaze me the level of hubris in people like Woodward in misrepresenting what people they have interviewed said when the quotations are in the article. The claim that the late President Ford “‘very strongly’ disagreed with the current president’s justifications for invading Iraq,” is like most of the other editorial comments Woodward makes, either taken out of context or, in the way it’s presented, at best a half-truth. Simple proof, read the headline of the article below, then read the statements in context.

Liberals love to find some elder statesman of the Republican party who, to be charitable, is less than fully compos mentis, and goad them into making unguarded statements which may then be turned against whatever Republican policy the Liberal is attempting to discredit. It was done with Barry Goldwater, it was done with Newt Gingrich’s mother, and now thanks to a cold-blooded, money-grubbing, has been reporter, it has been done to the late President Ford. My contempt for Liberals grows daily…

Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq
By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 28, 2006; Page A01

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

First, President Ford could never have been considered a Conservative Republican. He was a Moderate at best. That is one reason that his choice as the replacement for Spiro T. Agnew as vice-president was so widely embraced. So if his views are at variance with current administration policies, it comes as no surprise.

Second, in spite of the way the former President’s statements are being presented, his disagreement hinged, as he states in the above quote, on “how they [President Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney] chose to justify” attacking Saddam’s regime and although Woodward claims that the former President states that he would have pushed for alternatives,” he never clearly says that invading Iraq was a mistake.

Third, his opinion, as he clearly stated, “based on the publicly available information at the time.” That, of course, means that his opinion, however nice a guy he was, was no more informed than that of any other regular citizen of the United States. Unlike some former Presidents, Jimmah Cahtah and Bubba Clinton to be specific, former President Ford refrained from sticking his nose into the business of subsequent presidents. Would that Democrats could demonstrate the same restraint and consideration.

Woodward also makes a big deal out of the Late President’s statement:

"And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

Dutifully neglecting, as a spokesman for the Democrat Party, to mention the fact that the War in Iraq was deemed by most of Congress, and the current administration to be “directly related to our own national security.”

Most Americans, except for those Democrats who so full-heartedly backed their own beloved “Bubba” in his invasion of Bosnia, would agree with President Ford’s statement. Quite simply, the War in Iraq is in our national security interests, and the war in Bosnia was not in any way in our national security interests. Funny how Democrats seem to skip right over that point.

Oh, by the way. Did you hear that Cindy “I love Hugo Chavez” Sheehan has now blamed the late President Ford for her son’s death? Seems that the only people she resolutely refuses to blame are the ones who actually killed him. For Cindy, it’s all about her.

Liberals disappoint me in their ability to boorish, hateful, anti-American, traitors who value the right to commit infanticide and pursue political power more than they value their fellow citizens, or their nation.

Have you ever noticed what noble, highly moral, good people Republican Presidents have been, and what creatures of low ethical and moral standards Democrat Presidents have been? Lyndon Johnson-crooked as the day is long, corrupt and incompetent. Jimmy Carter-treasonous, lying, incompetent. Bill Clinton-do I need to say anything at all?

God save the American Republic!

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