I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more discussion about the fact that Donald Trump has been lying since the start of the campaign about his position on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Specifically, Trump has claimed, again and again and again, that he was against the Iraq war. Just as significant, he has represented that his rationale was the belief that the military invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein would “destabilize the region,” shifting the balance of power to Iran. The intimation (no, the outright claim – subtle intimation is not The Donald’s style) is that he, uniquely among candidates for the GOP presidential nomination and in contrast to Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, understood the dynamics of Middle Eastern geopolitics; thus, the Trump argument goes, he is best suited to be commander-in-chief.
It has long been apparent that this is all Trumpian bunk: Despite scouring the record, no one has found a paper or audio trail of Trump expressing opposition to the war. Trump has countered that this was because he was not a politician at the time. But that’s silly: He was a celebrity who notoriously commented on public questions – abortion, socialized medicine, eminent domain, the merits of confiscatory taxation to address runaway debt, etc.
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