A bit of an overreach

Huckabee went from talk show to talk show this morning, trying to explain that what he really meant when he said in the last debate that Iraq might still have had WMDs was that Iraq might still have had WMDs. He admitted “I don’t have any evidence,” but the guy who doesn’t believe in evolution hardly requires any evidence to suggest that they might be in Syria or “some remote area of Jordan.” “But simply saying — we didn’t find them so therefore they didn’t exist — is a bit of an overreach.” He added that “My point was, Saddam Hussein bragged that he had them. We know that he in the past had used them. So there have been weapons of mass destruction. ... They didn’t exist when we got into Iraq, but that didn’t mean they never were there.” Oh, don’t you try to get out of this with your clever verb tenses, mister.


He added that Bush “didn’t lie to us. ... I support that the president did what he believed was necessary. ... But to second guess the president now, I think, is really not a very prudent thing to do. It doesn’t make us feel any better.” Define “us,” Mike. He likened such second-guessing to Monday-morning-quarterbacking, saying “But when you’re out there on the game, and guys that are weighing 320 pounds are rushing at you, you know, you have to make split-second decisions. And sometimes they’re not always perfect.” Of course there may not have been any 320-pound guys, or they may have been in Syria or some remote area of Jordan...

By the way, this week he’s said that he’s afraid of 320-pound football players and of Chuck Norris kicking him in the head. Also cheese, he has an unnatural fear of cheese. My point is: for him, fear is as an acceptable excuse for bad decision-making, which just doesn’t bode all that well for his own decision-making process (plus, of course, the decision to invade Iraq was not made in a split-second).

He concluded, “I think what we’ve got to do is to say, let’s make the best of what we have in Iraq.” Yeah, let’s do that.

Elsewhere, Romney said that McCain is “trying desperately to change the topic from the economy and trying to get back to Iraq.” Indeed, McCain told Tim Russert,

I believe that most Republicans’ first priority is the threat of radical Islamic extremism. Now, I know the concerns about the economy...

MR. RUSSERT: More than the economy?

SEN. McCAIN: More than the economy at the end of the day.

And he told a campaign rally, “There’s going to be other wars.” Oh good, something to look forward to, then.


McCain’s campaign promises: pizza and the draft.