Saddam Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda: What the Media Would Admit Before Bush

Via Sykes Writes and Powerline:

An ABC News report from 2000 that discusses links between Saddam Hussein and al Queda.

After Bush went to war with Hussein, it became an article of faith among liberals that there were no such links, and that the Iraq war was just a “sideshow” having nothing to do with the War on Terror.

Powerline wonders:

Before Democrats had a partisan motive to claim, contrary to all the evidence, that there was no relationship between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and bin Laden’s al Qaeda, their close and dangerous relationship was common knowledge.

It really is a fascinating question: in this era of digital media, can the news media and the Democrats get away with trying to flush what they said as recently as 1998 and 2000 down the memory hole?

An article in the current issue of The Weekly Standard documents the numerous and threatening links between the terror network and the Iraqi dictator.

So how are liberals, leftists and the mainstream media going to deal with this? They can either (1.) ignore evidence linking Saddam and al Queda or (2.) conveniently ignore the fact that they ever questioned the connection.

I predict we will see both responses. They will continue to act and talk as though there was no evidence linking Saddam and al Queda, but then when cornered on it, will respond “we never said there wasn’t.”