“When Clinton lied, no one died.” I saw this on a car in the parking lot, and it struck a cord with me.
About eight years ago President Clinton was impeached by the House for lying about whether he had “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky, and barely received enough Senate votes to stay in office. The impeachment ordeal put strain on nearly two years of the former president’s second term, and kept Clinton from concentrating on much more crucial matters. And all this because he didn’t want to tell the world about something very personal that had nothing to do with the affairs of the United States of America.
The bumper sticker implies that President Bush has lied as well, but about something very different: the cause of the war in Iraq. If President Bush has lied about the reasons for going to war, then he has caused the unnecessary death of hundreds of American soldiers, and thousands of Iraqis.
The major reason the Bush administration gave for going to war was that Saddam Hussein had a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Not only have none been found since the war began, but at the time of Bush’s statement, the possibility of WMD was not supported by intelligence analysts. Also, according to David Corn, the Washington editor of The Nation, the CIA had concluded that Iraq was far from developing a nuclear weapons program.
Bush has lied, and people have died. His lies have an infinitely more negative and widespread impact than Clinton’s. So why hasn’t Congress impeached him?
Karyn Meshbane is a sophomore majoring in neuroscience. She can be contacted at k.meshbane@umiami.edu.