Fight

Bill Maher's show is back on HBO for a new season and the opener was pretty raw. At opposite ends of the panel were Tim Robbins and official Cheney biographer Stephen Hayes. Robbins was, of course, right about not going into Iraq. Hayes continues to cling to a more-than-dubious Doug Feith memo to support a Sophistic connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Queda, and ipso facto Saddam attacked us on 9/11 and bully for us getting quagmired.

Robbins (and Maher) tore into neoconservative court copywriter Hayes directly:

Robbins: You’re partly responsible, you could start with an apology. You wrote a book saying there was a connection Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Hayes: You want to know why I wrote that book? Because there was a connection Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Maher: No there wasn’t

Robbins: You can lie a thousand times—it doesn’t make it true.

And even better, from Robbins:

"...before we got into this war there were countless "military experts", intelligence analysts, that told us that this was a good idea, that we had to do it, that presented their information and were so terribly wrong. These people are still affecting public policy, are still considered experts. I'm sorry, but shouldn't there a law or rule that says "If you f**k things up so badly you can no longer be an expert"

There are two current MSM/GOP/Neocon questions that I think need to be beat down until we don't hear them any more, and the third panelist (in the middle), NPR's Michel Martin asked both of them:

1. Why does it have to be that someone lied? Why can't it just be that they had good intentions, there were simply mistakes made?

Answer: The lie is the crime. If liars (on such a grand scale) are still in power, they need to be exposed and vilified, and neutralized if not removed.

2. Why do we have to go over the past when it's the situation now that we have to deal with?

Answer: Of course we have to deal with the situation now, but that isn't entirely a separate issue. For one, if we don't learn from our history, no matter how recent, we will be condemned to repeat it. For another, if we don't analyze how we got into this, we may let those who got us stuck in this quagmire continue to rule, and for those Neocon/Cheney/GOP voices to continue to control the War and foreign policy.

And they cannot be trusted. Ever, ever again.

So fight.

Vanquish.