Hurrah! MSM Mainstay Supports Bush

Anyone who tracks media ownership knows the Chicaco Tribune is much more than a large midwestern daily -- it is also the owner of the LATimes and Newsday and hence, the mothership of a liberal MSM empire.

So it's cause of celebration when ChiTrib's editorial writers carefully analyze what we know today of Bush's nine arguments for war against Iraq and conclude:

Seventeen days before the war, this page reluctantly urged the president to launch it. We said that every earnest tool of diplomacy with Iraq had failed to improve the world's security, stop the butchery--or rationalize years of UN inaction. We contended that Saddam Hussein, not George W. Bush, had demanded this conflict.

Many people of patriotism and integrity disagreed with us and still do. But the totality of what we know now ... affirms for us our verdict of March 2, 2003.

You really should read the entire four-clicker article, but in case you're rushed, here's a summary:

1. Weapons of mass destruction: Over-emphasized and unnecessary, given other overwhelmingly justified causes for war.
2. Iraq ignores the UN: Bush understated the chicanery and toothlessness of the UN.
3. Quest for nukes: Even if overstated (aluminum tubes & yellowcake), a legit cause for concern ... and war.
4. Pre-emptive war needed to take out weapons-making capabilities: Very possible, but you can't prove future actions.
5. Saddam harbors terrorists: Exaggerated. [I think ChiTrib is understating here.]
6. Reforming the Middle East: The "most successful pre-war prediction to date."
7. Iraq-al Qaeda connection: Exaggerated. [How many connections would ChiTrib allow?]
8. Saddam's brutality: Accurate. Saddam would have continued his brutality if we hadn't stopped him.
9. Iraq ready for representative democracy: Correct.
   

h/t memeorandum