Murtha: "Why Would I Believe" Cheney?
On Late Edition this morning, Wolf asked Jack Murtha for his response to Dick Cheney's charge that a withdrawal from Iraq would result in chaos.
MURTHA: Why would I believe that? I mean, all the things that they have predicted have -- everything I predicted turned out to be true. Nothing they predicted turned out to be true. Why would I believe there's going to be chaos in the Middle East just because they say it? The Iraqis don't believe that. The countries on the periphery don't believe that and the public doesn't believe it. The public wants us out. They spoke in the last election.
Granted this seems like the obvious answer, but among America's political punditry elite, those who have consistently been wrong about everything (Cheney, Ledeen, etc.) are still regarded as experts, whereas those who were correct the entire time (Murtha, Dean, Gore, etc.) are considered unserious no-nothing hacks who should be ignored.
This reminds me of an exchange Tim Russert had with Lindsay Graham two weeks ago. To his credit, Timmeh hit the nail on the head:
MR. RUSSERT: But many Americans will say that those who supported the war are saying, “Trust us, see this through,” the same people who said, “There are weapons of mass destruction. General Shinseki’s wrong, we don’t need hundreds of thousands of troops. We will be greeted as liberators.”
SEN. GRAHAM: Mm-hmm.
MR. RUSSERT: “The cost of the war,” according to Lawrence Lindsey, “won’t be more than $200 billion.” “There won’t be any sectarian violence.” All those judgments were wrong. Why should the American people continue to belive in those same people who had so many misjudgments leading up and executing the war?
The answer, of course, is we shouldn't.