Gov. John Kasich joined CNN's Dana Bash Sunday morning and tried to rewrite his own history of support for the failed Iraq war.
(CNN)John Kasich says now that he never would have taken the United States to war in Iraq -- but the Ohio governor supported then-President George W. Bush's push for war in 2002.
In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" aired Sunday, Kasich said, "I would never have committed ourselves to Iraq."
But in November 2002, Kasich, then a former congressman, made a very different argument during an event at The Ohio State University, as the United States was gearing up for war in Iraq.
"We should go to war with Iraq. It's not likely that (Saddam) Hussein will give up his weapons. If he did he would be disgraced in the Arab world," he said then.
Kasich's 2002 comments, in front of a crowd of 100 students at the Kuhn Honors and Scholars House, were reported at the time by The Lantern, Ohio State's student newspaper, under the headline: "Fireside speaker favors war with Iraq."
Kasich was a Fox News host for many years on Fox News and as much as he'd like us to all forget his positions at the time, they will be part of his record and he won't be able to run away from them. And I doubt you'll find any Republican today who didn't help cheerlead this country into that God awful war.
He was a Fox News host and contributor at the time. This note from an Iraqi scientist gives a little hint of where Kasich was at on the subject:
During my recent FOX TV Heartland show interview with John Kasich about a week ago, I was one dimensionally bombarded with flimsy arguments by the anchor on the abundance of "Iraqi defectors have told of nuclear weapon sites" and who am I to refute Khidhir Hamza, the infamous "bombmaker" who has been claiming the existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program for a year now on CNN, along with speaking to American congressional committees and right wing "think tanks."
I'm sure there are endless examples of his Fox cheerleading which will be dug up in short shrift.
His spokesman "clarified" later that he didn't mean what he said he meant --- he actually said that if we knew then what we know now he wouldn't do it. This is becoming the catch all focus group tested line of bullshit among these guys and they should not be allowed to get away with it.
The Bush administration pulled the inspectors out when they were unable to find any WMD!!!! And these idiots all cheered him on, rejecting all the information that was out there at the time that contradicted their propaganda.
And that's not even taking into consideration the fact that they couldn't get the rest of the world on board, much less the UN, and based the whole thing on a ridiculous thesis that had been illegal since World War II.
Digby's right of course. The media and Republicans will try once again to use the "if we knew then what we know now," defense to worm their way out of being held responsible for supporting the Iraq war. Many of us, the media and analysts around the world knew it was all bullshit from the start.
