An imminent threat … to his own credibility

How dare George W. Bush now claim he never said Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

Listen to this quote from 2002 on the danger posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction:

“I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.”

Oops. Actually, that wasn’t George W. Bush. It was John F. Kerry explaining why he was going to vote for the congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Saddam’s regime in Iraq.

Mr. Kerry now explains he wasn’t really for using force in Iraq. He may have voted for the resolution but he didn’t mean it, not then anyway or maybe not ever. He was just trying to pressure Saddam. (Another term for this approach is bluffing. It has not been known to work very well on dictators, who can smell weakness continents away.)

But that was a different John F. Kerry who voted for war. That one wasn’t the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, a candidate who now has to Energize the Base, which is 2004-ish for stirring up the mob.

In his new incarnation, Mr. Kerry — and many of his fellow Democrats — have taken after the president for saying, well, pretty much what John F. Kerry was saying a year or so ago.

The Big Lie in this rapidly overheating presidential campaign is that George W. Bush claimed Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat.

Also-rans from Wesley Clark to Howard Dean — which pretty much covers the gamut from left to lefter — joined John Kerry in leaving that false impression. Or maybe it was he who joined them. It scarcely matters by now; the claim has become part of the regnant political mythology.

Actually, what George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address last year was just the opposite — that this country dare not wait until a threat is imminent before responding to it, not after what happened September 11, 2001.

But no matter how many times the president’s actual words are dug up and pointed out, they’re not likely to have much effect on those who know what they know, or rather what they what to know, and aren’t about to be confused by mere fact.

Maybe the problem is that, amidst all the sound and fury of a gathering presidential campaign, you have to shout to be heard. So let’s take a look at the president’s words up close, as if they were the first line on an eye chart:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late.

— George W. Bush, Jan. 28, 2003

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