You know it really is a lot easier to debate when you just ignore the other sides position. Or distort it all out of reason. That's what today's William Safire column does.
"Think about that. Do today's groupthinkers believe that Osama bin Laden would sit down with Saddam in front of the world's cameras to sign a mutual assistance pact, establishing a formal relationship? Terrorists and rogue states don't work that way. Mass killers collaborate informally, without a photo op, even secretly."
The difficulty in uncovering evidence of a conspiracy is that failure to produce evidence is taken as proof of the conspiracy. The fact that we haven't been able to find any evidence of a collaboration between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda is not evidence that such a link didn't exist but evidence of their skill in disguising that link.
Let is be clear on our terms. When we Democrats say there is no link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, we don't literally mean no link. We mean no operatative link. They weren't working together to hurt America.
It's impossible to prove a negative, of course, and perhaps some Democrats are making overly strong statements denying such a link. But the other side of the argument is that the Administration and it's defenders have had three years to prove an operative link, and they haven't succeeded yet. After a while, the failure to prove the link becomes a kind of evidence.
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