August 3, 2003 - The congressman from the Seventh District of Illinois followed the party line challenging the President. The party’s leader in the House had said, “This is no war of defense but one of unnecessary and of offensive aggression.” The basis on which the President had secured authorization to go to war was being challenged as a best an “exaggeration” and at worst an outright knowing lie. His law partner wrote him to tell him to soft pedal the criticism, that it was contrary to the opinions of the electorate back home. The congressman replied:

“Richardson’s resolutions…make the direct question of the justice of the war; so that no man can be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and your only alternative is to tell the truth or tell a lie…The Loons are untiring in their effort to make the impression that all who vote supplies or take part in the war do, of necessity, approve of the President’s conduct in the beginning of it. But [we] have from the beginning made and kept the distinction between the two.”

The year was 1847. The President was James Polk. The “lie” was that the skirmish that shed American blood took place on American and not Mexican soil. The Congressman was Abraham Lincoln. With opposition editors ridiculing him as suffering from ‘spotted fever’ his opposition to the President cost the Congressman his seat and the controversy over the justice of the war dogged the President and cost him reelection.

The issue is the same. A successful war or at least a successful campaign has been launched on at best an exaggeration and at worst an outright lie. The President’s loyalists, seeking to dissipate responsibility point to Senate votes to share the blame with the opposition, ignoring the basis upon which the votes were obtained.

Faced with the direct question of the justice of the Second Iraqi War men and parties are compelled to speak and their only alternative is to speak the truth or to stand by a lie. There are no fearsome weapons of mass destruction and there were none in January 2002, March 2002, September 2002, January 2003 or on March 19th 2003. The President is determined to revise and twist his lie until he wrings every drop of truth from it. The more he revises it and the more he twists it the more the falsity of the original is made evident.

A few saw the truth early and as each day passes the more recognize the fraud and recover from Bush fever.