Bush Lied: the meme dies

From Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit:

I think the "Bush lied us into war" meme is in trouble, and the GOP pushback seems to be a general effort, not a one-off. And I also think that the reason that so many antiwar people want to move from discussion of whether specific behavior is unpatriotic, to the strawman question of whether any criticism of the war is unpatriotic (note Schieffer's question -- "Do you believe it is unpatriotic to criticize the Iraq policy?" -- and how it differs from what Bush actually said) is because they know they're on weak ground on the specifics.

The evidence he sites if Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) riffing on Bob Scheiffer on CBS's Face the Nation:

SCHIEFFER: President Bush accused his critics of rewriting history last week.

Sen. McCAIN: Yeah.

SCHIEFFER: And in--he said in doing so, the criticisms they were making of his war policy was endangering our troops in Iraq. Do you believe it is unpatriotic to criticize the Iraq policy?

Sen. McCAIN: No, I think it's a very legitimate aspect of American life to criticize and to disagree and to debate. But I want to say I think it's a lie to say that the president lied to the American people. I sat on the Robb-Silverman Commission. I saw many, many analysts that came before that committee. I asked every one of them--I said, `Did--were you ever pressured politically or any other way to change your analysis of the situation as you saw?' Every one of them said no.

What interesting here is that we are starting to fight back and we are start to win the day. And while Mr. McCain's response to the question may be construed as political posturing (he is running for president after all), I think he sick of the nearly mechanical drumbeat of "Bush Lied". The White House, which can be so brilliant at times, has been completely AWOL in this fight. Look for others to take up the slack as they see it in their interest to do so. A wounded White House does no good to a Republican running for President.

Bush Lied: the meme dies

The Wall Street Journal published a lo-o-o-ong piece by Norman Podhoretz essentially dismantling the Bush Lied argument. The lead:

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Prediction. The meme dies except amongst those on the wacky Left who live in a thermos bottle of their own making.