Mr. Gore's Blurred View reads the Washington Post’s headline on the editorial page. [1] Decisions of war and peace are complex. The argument that Saddam Hussein was and is a seriously dangerous man [2] , is not and never has been in question. The Congress, the courts and the public are highly dependent on the executive branch of the federal government and the President to present both a recommendation and the facts for that recommendation. The question is not whether or not former Vice President Gore’s vision is blurred, but whether or not the President of the United States purposely blurred the facts.

History is replete with many examples of this inter-dependency between the executive and other branches of our government. Two significant examples come to mind. The first is the Cuban missile crisis. The second is the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Both situations involved the use of military force with potentially grave consequences. In the Cuban missile crisis there is no question that President Kennedy was telling the truth as he best understood the truth. [3] No one ever questioned whether or not Castro was building missile silos and that Russia was shipping missiles to Cuba. The crisis and our response became one of the defining moments of President Kennedy’s administration.

In contrast there is no question that President Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin [4] incident. No one questioned that communism was evil and that the world needed to fight communism. Yet, many members of Congress came to regret their decision to vote in favor of the resolution. The resolution became a defining moment for the Johnson administration with the result that one of the most powerful presidents in American history failed to run for a second full term for office. The Johnson presidency ended in disgrace.

Is the decision to go to war with Iraq more like the Cuban missile crisis or the Gulf of Tonkin incident? Was the President of the United States lying (or blurring or self-deceiving) about the imminence of the threat as in the Gulf of Tonkin, or was he telling the truth as in the Cuban missile crisis? Will President Bush’s presidency end in disgrace, like Johnson’s or will President Bush leave a legacy of pride as Kennedy’s administration?

I believe that Gore’s vision is clearer than the facts presented by President Bush.