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Editorial: Truman had the approach Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News July 25 "The buck stops here," declared President Harry Truman. President Bush's alternate version of that phrase is: "It was the CIA's fault. No, it was the fault of British intelligence. No, actually a White House bureaucrat is to blame." We find President Truman's approach to be preferable. It is deplorable enough that a thoroughly debunked intelligence report on Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program made it into a State of the Union speech in which the president attempted to make the case for a pre-emptive war with Iraq. The lie, now exposed, is worsened by the White House's insistence on finding a scapegoat. When blame failed to stick to CIA Director George Tenet, the White House Tuesday designated hapless Stephen Hadley, the president's deputy national security adviser, to be the fall guy for the bogus claim. ... President Bush, however, hasn't cornered the market on disingenuous political behavior. With the United States sinking into an Iraqi quagmire, Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt has begun blasting the administration's Iraq policy, a policy enacted largely because Congress passed a resolution relinquishing its responsibility for war-making. A chastened Gephardt now says he "had hoped" and "had assumed" that the president had a post-invasion plan for Iraq. So, Mr. Gephardt helped sign away congressional oversight of a war in the "hope" that the president knew what he was doing. It will be tough to sell his candidacy to Democratic voters with that blunder on his resume. ... LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -