John Edwards: Self-Righteous Indignation Is My Middle Name

Lee P. Butler

John Edwards, former Senator from North Carolina and defeated liberal Democrat running-mate of John Kerry in the last presidential election, recently opined... or whined as some would say... about his original support for Operation Iraqi Freedom. His self-righteous indignation was thicker than the mist of a cool Appalachian morning.

"I was wrong. Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told -- and what many of us believed and argued -- was a threat to America. But we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda."

Okay? Let's just examine this sanctimonious pap and expose it for the drivel it is.

He started out his whine session by declaring that, 'I was wrong'. What exactly does this self-serving psuedo-mea culpa really do anyway, other than be used by Edwards to disingenuously distance himself from the educated, intelligence-based decision he made as a Senator to support removing Saddam from power, so he can appease his morally vacant, liberal, anti-war brethren, who he now obviously believes will put him in the White House?

After he admits that he 'believed and argued' that Saddam was a threat to America, Edwards follows classic liberal form and skews reality just enough to fit his fallacious agenda. He writes, 'But we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003'.

That statement completely dodges the very purpose of his mendacious op-ed. Why would a person apologize today for a decision that person made years ago based on intelligence that turned out to be faulty when everybody knows that hindsight is 20-20?

Besides, WMD were found in Iraq, despite the claims of media elitists and liberals like John Edwards to the contrary. No 'stockpiles' of WMD have been found, but there has been enough chemical agent found to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

Plus, saying that Iraq didn't have WMD when we invaded totally belies the fact that our troops were prepared for a WMD attack at the outset, meaning everyone BELIEVED Saddam had the weapons at his disposal, especially in light of the fact that he had used them before to slaughter millions of innocent Muslims.

Even Edwards admits the 'intelligence was deeply flawed', but he doesn't just leave it there. Apologizing for flawed intelligence is one thing, but condemning someone else who followed the same evidence, is something else entirely.

He acrimoniously charges that intelligence was, 'manipulated to fit a political agenda' and then goes even further by asserting, 'Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he [President Bush] has made horrible mistakes at almost every step: failed diplomacy; not going in with enough troops; not giving our forces the equipment they need; not having a plan for peace.'

Not only doesn't he justify his charge that intelligence was 'manipulated', it is also plainly obvious that his other Michael Moore-esque assertions have nothing what-so-ever to do with making a decision to liberate Iraq based on intelligence that was overwhelmingly accepted by those who reviewed it including: Republicans, Democrats, and other countries alike.

Add John Edwards who was on the Senate Intelligence Committee to that list!

Not to mention the fact that Edwards and his liberal cronies conveniently forget the seventeen U.N. resolutions Saddam had been thumbing his nose at.

Edwards also charged, 'The information the American people were hearing wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war.' Wouldn't the information the American people heard be the same information as what he saw as a member of the intelligence committee? That is nothing more than pompous sophistry!

His buddy John Kerry said, "I will be voting to give the president of the US the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his [Saddam's] hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

Obviously, based on Edwards own words, he doesn't feel the intelligence supported belief that, 'a real and grave threat to our security' is enough justification to protect American citizens through military intervention!

Good thing he doesn't represent North Carolina in the Senate any more.

What he should apologize for is turning on the people of North Carolina who elected him as a Conservative Democrat and didn't tell them he was a liberal to begin with just so he could get elected, then stab them all in the back.

But then, that would be just as disingenuous.