Presidential aide Peter Wehner’s extraordinary op-ed in the Wall Street Journal is exactly the kind of response we need more of from the White House. One by one, Wehner debunks the left’s stale attacks on the president’s rationale for war. He carefully marshals facts in support of each one of his arguments. The evidence is clear: The Bush administration did not misuse intelligence, Saddam was a threat and Democracy-promotion was not an after-the-fact rationalization but a motivating principle from the start.
Conservatives have been making these arguments over and over, but with this op-ed the White House has provided a keystone to which supporters of the administration’s policy in Iraq can return whenever we hear one of these tired attacks dredged up. I hope we’re seeing the beginning of a revitalized communications strategy within the White House.