A federal appeals judge wrote in a column published on Sunday that people who accuse former President George W. Bush of lying about the Iraq War are peddling myths like those that led to the rise of Hitler.
Laurence H. Silberman, a federal appellate judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the idea the Bush administration “lied us into Iraq” has gone from “antiwar slogan to journalistic fact.”
“[I]t is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised,” he wrote. “It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam.”
After re-litigating the case for invading Iraq, Silberman wrote that the charge could have “potentially dire consequences.”
“I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by politicians,” he wrote.
h/t The Awl
Well, slap my ass and call me Hitler.
What is the propriety of a federal appellate judge offering such opinions in such a public forum? There is strong evidence to suggest that the Bush administration did indeed lie to the American people in order to sway public opinion towards the invasion of Iraq. Comments Bush made to Richard Clarke were amongst the first to establish that the administration wanted to link 9/11 to Iraq despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
For an appellate judge to immerse himself into this matter betrays his own prejudices which certainly color his decisions on matters before the Court.
Life-time appointment. Sigh
So calling Bush an unmitigated liar–who eventually joked about wmds and said he didn’t think nor was he doing anything about Bin Laden—is like Hitler? The judge should have lunch with Ben Carson who thinks many things are like Hitler.
Larry, it didn’t go from antiwar slogan to journalistic fact … it went from state secret to objective fact. Republican candidates for President must now do much more than lie … they must take things that are demonstrably untrue and “make” America accept them as fact. The candidates themselves have “nazified” the process, and many conservatives have come to accept that as a normal part of American politics.