Category: Weaponsgate

Armies of the Nut.

“Democracy, more than any other political system, depends on a modicum of honesty. Ultimately, it is much at the mercy of a leader who has never been embarrassed by himself.” Norman Mailer weighs in on the Iraq War, Weaponsgate, and Dubya’s aircraft carrier stunt.

Creeping Doubt.

This is a week old, but I didn’t see it until Meet the Press yesterday: Conservative columnist George Will tries to account for the missing WMD. “But unless America’s foreign policy is New Age therapy to make the public feel mellow, feeling good about the consequences of an action does not obviate the need to assess the original rationale for the action. Until WMD are found, or their absence accounted for, there is urgent explaining to be done.”

Willful Disbelief.

Salon examines the reasons for Dubya’s continued public support despite the WMD shenanigans. “Just imagine how much shock and complaining there would be if we learned that ‘American Idol’ had been rigged. But Bush and his comrades can use deceptive means to launch a war and to pass trillion-dollar tax cuts that bust the bank — and then skate away.” In related news, the New Republic offers a concise overview of the story to date.

Card-Carrying Conservatism.

While the Democratic party as a whole continues to seem as divided and stymied by the Dubya dip as they do Weaponsgate, several of the candidates lash out on their own, including John Edwards, who calls the Dubya tax cuts the “most radical and dangerous economic theory to hit our shores since Socialism.” I’d think Eugene Debs is probably turning over in his grave at the comparison.

“I think we can ride this out.”

With the Weaponsgate furor still simmering (Dean has now called for an investigation), Dubya and his cronies try to confuse cause and effect in Iraq…apparently it no longer matters if WMDs are found or not, because Saddam was a bad man. In other words, the Bushie plan is, as per usual, to keep spouting the same propaganda until people start overlooking their leap in logic. Hmm…well, it seemed to work for the Iraq-9/11 connection, didn’t it?

Don’t Call it a Cover-Up.

Typical. While the term “WMD” gets more and more broadly defined by Dubya, Fleischer et al, the GOP issues a lockdown on joint and open hearings into the Bushies’ use of CIA intelligence, since “criticism of the intelligence agencies has been divisive and could hurt national security.” Um…wouldn’t misuse of intelligence agency information to start a war compromise national security too?

What did the President not know, and when did he not know it?

Whether or not WMDs are ever found in Iraq at this point, it has become increasingly clear that the Bushies were contradicting their own intelligence last September and overstating the WMD capabilities of Iraq to the UN, the international community, and the American people. Lying to America? Falsifying intelligence? As John Dean points out for CNN, we’re now entering Nixon territory. (Second two links via Pigs and Fishes and Medley.)

The “Browbeaters.”

Is Paul Wolfowitz in a 12-step program? A week after confiding to America about the “bureaucratic” thinking that motivated the WMD casus belli, Wolfowitz opens up to an audience in Singapore, telling them “we had no choice” in our Iraq policy because “the country swims on a sea of oil.” (Via High Industrial.) And now it turns out Cheney and co. were leaning hard on the CIA to come up with the “right” intelligence about Iraq’s WMD capabilities (and an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection.) Hmm…looks like it’s getting grim at WMD Search Central. Update: Jake Tapper of Salon points out that Wolfowitz’s alleged Singapore statement is based on a misquote – Wolfowitz was talking about the efficacy of sanctions, not the reasons for war.