That's Because You WEREN'T LISTENING

I love the internet. The interconnectivity. The eidetic memory. The instant recall, complete with footnotes.

Instapundit delivers a smackdown to St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorialist Sylvester Brown Jr.'s latest piece, where Mr. Brown states:

I've noticed that comedian Bill Maher has been doing a bit of reaching out himself lately. Several times on his show, "Real Time with Bill Maher," he's encouraged more conservatives to join his audience. Maher's even conceded that his criticism of President George W. Bush's activities in Iraq may have been at least partly wrong.

"Look, on the long-range, big picture of getting the freedom-and-democracy ball rolling in the Middle East, maybe these guys had it right," Maher said on his show Friday.

Sounds to me like Maher's buying into the bait-and-switch rhetoric of the Bush clan. Maybe I would, too, if they were straight shooters. But, before the Iraq invasion, the rallying cry was against an "axis of evil" and "weapons of mass destruction." I don't recall any prewar speeches about delivering democracy to the Middle East.

Ah, Mr. Brown, accusing the "Bush clan" of lying when it is YOU who are at fault for not listening, as Glenn and some of his readers point out.

Perhaps you should try removing the blinders and the earplugs, and listen to what the "Bush clan" acutally says rather than what gets through the media filter, eh?

If I recall correctly, the protests against Bush's call to "deliver democracy to the Middle East" was (and I paraphrase) that 'the wogs weren't up to it, and didn't want it anyway.'

Edited to add: Oh, and this reminds me of a July, 2004 post that drew some attention when Steven Den Beste linked to it for this cartoon:

The Internet = Total Recall