Newsmax busts General Zinni for mega-flip-flop

I think one of liberalism's greatest enemies is the public record of past statements. General Zinni has risen to great heights among the liberal base by criticizing the Bush administration for its Iraq policy. He has accused Bush of cherry picking intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq. Well NewsMax is reporting some quotes by Zinni during his tenure during the Clinton administration and it looks like he has enough egg on his face to make a few omelettes. From 2000:

"Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region," Zinni told Congress on March 15, 2000.

"Despite claims that WMD efforts have ceased," the general-turned-war critic said, "Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions, and is concealing extended-range SCUD missiles, possibly equipped with CBW [chem-bio-weapons] payloads," Zinni said, in quotes unearthed Friday by the American Thinker blog.

Contrasted with a fanfare appearance on Meet the Press 2 weeks ago:

"What bothered me," Zinni told host Tim Russert, "[was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.

Here he is,again pre-Bush, going further commenting on even if Saddam had no WMD that he is still a serious threat:

In fact, Zinni's flip-flop was so acute he should be suffering from a case of rhetorical whiplash. Here's more from the old Zinni - here telling Congress that Saddam would remain a threat even if he gave up his WMDs:

"Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains the scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months."

So somehow before Bush assumes office, it is obvious that Saddam would always be a threat until he was removed. After he takes office, these reasoning powers evaporate. They had and then lost the ability to realize that once sanctions and UN oversight were lifted, Saddam would be free to reconstitute his weapons program.

Liberals have lifted this man up very high. This revelation that Zinni's current comment are the workings of a political hack instead of military insight will be devastating to the lineup of Generals calling for Rumsfeld's head. After all, what have they said in the past that will come back to haunt them? I think we will soon find out. Public records, what a beautiful thing.