“And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?” Cheney said then in response to a question.”And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we’d achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq.” - Dick Cheney, 8/1992.

“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.” - George W. Bush, 4/1999.

It’s not only the hypocrisy in these statements, but the demonstrable truth. They were right back then, to not invade Iraq. So what happened? Did something fundamentally change, or did they simply choose to ignore what they knew to be true? Or were they just craven partisans, hypocrites defending their president’s correct decision then - defending their president’s disastrous decision now, and in between, attacking the president for putting American lives in danger:

There is no reason for the United States of America to remain in Somalia. The American people want them home, I believe the majority of Congress wants them home, and to set an artificial date of March 31 or even February 1, in my view, is not acceptable. The criteria should be to bring them home as rapidly and safely as possible, an evolution which I think could be completed in a matter of weeks.

Our continued military presence in Somalia allows another situation to arise which could then lead to the wounding, killing or capture of American fighting men and women. We should do all in our power to avoid that.

I listened carefully to the President’s remarks at a news conference that he held earlier today. I heard nothing in his discussion of the issue that would persuade me that further U.S. military involvement in the area is necessary. In fact, his remarks have persuaded me more profoundly that we should leave and leave soon.

Dates certain, Mr. President, are not the criteria here. What is the criteria and what should be the criteria is our immediate, orderly withdrawal from Somalia. And if we do not do that and other Americans die, other Americans are wounded, other Americans are captured because we stay too long–longer than necessary–then I would say that the responsibilities for that lie with the Congress of the United States who did not exercise their authority under the Constitution of the United States and mandate that they be brought home quickly and safely as possible. . . .

I know that this debate is going to go on this afternoon and I have a lot more to say, but the argument that somehow the United States would suffer a loss to our prestige and our viability, as far as the No. 1 superpower in the world, I think is baloney. The fact is, we won the cold war. The fact is, we won the Persian Gulf conflict. And the fact is that the United States is still the only major world superpower.

I can tell you what will erode our prestige. I can tell you what will hurt our viability as the world’s superpower, and that is if we enmesh ourselves in a drawn-out situation which entails the loss of American lives, more debacles like the one we saw with the failed mission to capture Aideed’s lieutenants, using American forces, and that then will be what hurts our prestige. - John McCain, 10/1993.

Telling words from a Senator who now claims that taking such moves in Iraq - a much worse situation than Somalia ever was - would “embolden the enemy” and that Congress has no power to make such a move.

That in 1998, when Clinton launched airstrikes against bin Laden and, later, against Iraq, the Republicans accused him of using military action to distract the public from the Lewinsky scandal.

They have never been interested in what’s right for the country - only in partisan politics. Republican and “hypocrite” are becoming synonymous to the point of redundancy.