The Inconvenience of Certain Facts

As I watch the news the past few days, it becomes more and more obvious that many politicians and news people do not let facts get in the way of what they believe and say:

Joseph Wilson and Senator Schumer have called for Karl Rove to be fired and castigated even though no charges have been filed against him, and it appears he broke no laws nor did anything unethical in attempting to steer the press away from erroneous reporting. Of course, “politics ain’t bean bag”, and if his conversations served to punish a political enemy, so much the better in the Washington game.

It’s still being said that there was no connection between the terrorism of radical Muslim fundamentalists and the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, even though the 9/11 Commission report mentioned many connections, meetings, financing, support, training, etc. between Iraq and Al Queda long before 9/11.

It’s being said over and over that our military responses to 9/11 have caused the mainstream Muslim world to increase its support of Osama Bin Laden and Muslim terrorism in general. However, the Pew Survey that was published yesterday shows just the opposite: support for terrorists in Muslim countries has diminished appreciably recently, as has the stature of Bin Laden. The USA is not highly regarded, but what else is new?

The bombings in London have also triggered anew the charge that our joint military response in Iraq was the proximate cause for terrorist acts such as this, ignoring completely the series of terrorist acts that have been taking place against Western personnel and resources for decades. It is simply not true, but even if it were true, so what – give up? Give in?

One suspects that a major reason for the trumpeting of some of these positions might be a smokescreen to cover up the true facts that have come out about the scandalous lack of attention to world-wide terrorism during the Democratic administration of the 1990’s, and that these are the roosting chickens being camouflaged. What is that old lawyer’s saying? When you have the facts, pound the facts; when you have no facts, pound the table.