CR Nation

MoveOn.org is using the video to fundraise:

To comment on this video as a source of political donastions, it seems to me that two things make the message Dick Cheney portrays irrelevant to today’s Iraq debate.

First, the question then, as asked by the interviewer, was does the United States invade Iraq and why? Whereas today the question is not whether to invade, indeed Congres voted to authorize the invastion of Iraq by an overwhelming majoriy, but rather the question surrounding today’s Iraq debate focuses on is whether or not to stay in Iraq.

With that in mind, it makes no sense to use Dick Cheney’s comments in the video against him because to do so would be to grossly take those comments out of context. Mixing and matching questions and answers to serve political goals in unfair, illogical, and intellectually dishonest.

Second, the dynamics of how to fight Terrorism has changed. In 1991/1992 the United States was not concerned with fighting Terrorism, so that particular justification for not invading Iraq was not around. If it were maybe the scales would have tipped in favor of invading Iraq, but that is just speculation.

My point is, once again, that too much has changed since 1991 for this video to have any logical political appeal but even if nothing has changed the left would still be using Dick Cheney’s answer to one question as an answer to another.