By: E&P Staff In this month's op-ed shakeup at the Los Angeles Times, liberal columnist Robert Scheer lost his regular spot, and conservative pundit Jonah Goldberg gained a position. Goldberg's first column for the Times appeared today.
It opens, ?Stop me if you've heard this already. But there are people out there - honest, decent, sincere people and deranged moonbats, too - who think that George W. Bush lied about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. No, seriously, it's true."
Then Goldberg posed the question: Even if they are right, so what?
He recalled that ?the evidence that FDR lied is far greater than the evidence that Bush did,? pointing to President Roosevelt's moves and statements to get us into World War II: ?Does this make FDR a bad president? No. While I have my problems with FDR, most historians are right to be forgiving of deceit in a just cause. World War II needed to be fought, and FDR saw this sooner than others.
?Even the most cursory reading of any presidential biography will tell you that statesmanship requires occasional duplicity?.This isn't to say that the public's trust should be breached lightly, but there are other competing goods involved in any complex situation.
?Now, you might say that Iraq was no WWII, Saddam was no Hitler, and 9/11 was no Pearl Harbor. Those are all fair arguments with varying degrees of merit?.
?The Bush Doctrine is not chiefly about WMD and never was. Like FDR's vision, it balances democracy, security and morality?.
If Bush succeeds - still a big if - the painful irony for Bush's critics is that he will go down in history as a great president, even if he lied, while they will take their paranoia to their graves.?
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