LOCKERBIE, WHAT LOCKERBIE?

(h/t Steve Benen and Justin Elliott)

The fuss some wingnuts are making about Libya neglects to mention how many of them were in favor of then-Pres. Bush normalizing relations with Libya.  From LexisNexis...

Fox News Network
May 20, 2006 Saturday
SHOW: JOURNAL EDITORIAL REPORT 11:13 PM EST
Panel Discusses Normalizing Relations with Lybia
BYLINE: Paul Gigot
GUESTS: Dan Henninger, Melanie Kirkpatrick, Rob Pollock
SECTION: NEWS; International
LENGTH: 2356 words

GIGOT: Not everyone is praising the president's plan to normalize relations with Libya. A charter member of State Department's sponsors of terror list, that country has been implicated in numerous atrocities including the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Today continuing human rights abuses have critics asking whether establishing ties with Tripoli sends the wrong message to the rest of the Arab world.

Joining the panel this week: "Wall Street Journal" columnist and editorial page deputy editor, Dan Henninger; Deputy Editor, Melanie Kirkpatrick; and editorial board member Rob Pollock.

Melanie, you heard Judy Miller. Do you think the Stated Department did the right thing this week in recognizing Gadhafi's regime?


MELANIE KIRKPATRICK, DEPUTY EDITOR "WALL STREET JOURNAL": Yes, I do. Gadhafi's a nasty piece of work and Libya has been a malevolent force in the world for many years, but it gave up WMD, it has renounced terrorism, as best we can tell, and it deserves a reward for that. Our highest national priority has to be thwarting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction among rogue nations and this is a step that helps to achieve that goal.

ROB POLLOCK, EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": ... but I think, as Melanie said we cannot afford to send the signal to dictators around the world that we're not going to give them an inch unless they're perfect. And I don't think it's true that restoring diplomatic relations when a country sends the signal that everything's A-OK on the human rights front. And it certainly wasn't true with the Soviet Union. I mean, we had an embassy in the Soviet Union and yet we were still able to put substantial pressure on them for human rights for things like the Helsinki process.