Iraq was a mistake, Repugs refuse to admit it, the media spins the Dem race

Chickenhawks come home to roost: Iraq war questions gain momentum

And she (Condoleeza Rice) insisted that regardless of whether former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons stockpiles, the administration remained convinced that he posed a threat to the U.S.

Based on what? How was Saddam possibly a threat without any weapons with which to attack the U.S. or anyone else? Condie might as well claim that her next door neighbor's neutered dog knocked up her poodle. Not gonna happen!

"The American people, I think, understand that this president saw a grave and gathering threat in Saddam Hussein, a threat that had been gathering for more than 12 years," Rice said on NBC's "Today" show.

Well, the pResident was wrong. Saddam posed no gathering threat. His weapons capabilities had been dwindling, not gathering, for a decade. I hope that the American people understand that the pResident was wrong and that he lead us in to war because he was wrong.

A senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the White House planned to review the intelligence after receiving the final report by Kay's staff.

The official said the purpose would be not so much to detect failure as to draw lessons on "how to deal with highly secretive regimes."

This would be a good exercise for the American people, as well as the rest of the world, to undertake, considering the monumentally secretive regime currently in power in America.

On another front, House Republican leaders have mobilized to defend Bush against the impression that he took the U.S. to war under false pretenses. They circulated an analysis arguing that, in other, less-publicized comments, Kay "makes the case for action in Iraq."

The analysis cites Kay saying it was "unfair" to say Bush misled the American people, and noting that his understanding of Iraq's weapons capabilities was shared by intelligence agencies in France, Britain and Germany.

This little "share the blame" tactic is as lame as the "well Clinton felt the same way toward Saddam as the Boy pResident does". Clinton didn't march us off to war, guns blazing, over any feelings he might've had for Saddam, now did he? So, regardless of how they interpreted the intelligence (with the exception of lap dog Blair and the rest of the coalition of the threatened and paid off, of course) the rest of the world knew attacking Iraq was unwarranted and the wrong thing to do.

While Republicans stand publicly firm in their support of the war...

In other words, while the Repugs all stand proud with hard-ons for war.

Kay's successor as chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, says he plans to change the focus from a hunt for illegal weapons to an investigation into how the weapons programs were dismantled.

Are they seriously going to try to convince us that, now, this is the reason we went to war? So that we could "investigate...how the weapons programs were dismantled"? What difference does it make how the programs (notice he didn't say "weapons") were dismantled? The fact is that Iraq had disarmed before we attacked! And Saddam having banned weapons with the intent to use them was the only credible reason there was for going to war. I wonder how long it'll be before the maladministration changes the focus to what kind of underwear Saddam preferred. "So, we couldn't find any WMD and we couldn't find any programs to develop WMD and we couldn't really ascertain how any weapons programs he probably didn't have were dismantled, so now we're going to focus on just how much of a threat Saddam's boxers were", a mindless Repugnant drone will probably someday say.

While opposition to the Iraq war was central to the rise of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to the front of the Democratic pack in polls last year, his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire to Kerry — who voted for the invasion — suggested that the war was not the most important issue to Democratic voters.

No it doesn't, you bonehead. It merely suggests that more Dems are willing to give Kerry a pass (not me, mind you) on the fact that he voted for the war because he is now claiming, basically, that he was duped. Kerry is posing (genuinely, one hopes) as anti-war now, so the fact that he initially voted for war and Dean didn't (even though he couldn't being that he wasn't a Congressman) doesn't mean that the Iraq war is no longer an issue to Dems. It means that Dems see in Kerry a candidate who his capable of beating Bush and who represents enough of the core Democratic ideals (of at least those who've voted in the oh-so-representative states of Iowa and New Hampshire) to represent them.

But some analysts say the issue could become more problematic for Bush if the euphoria of capturing Hussein wears off and events in Iraq turn sour.

Am I missing something here in my little leftward leaning bubble? Didn't events in Iraq turn sour long ago? Was there ever any euphoria over the non-accomplishment of being lead to Saddam's hole?

"Bush is not bulletproof," said Andy Kohut of the Pew center. "If the cost continues to rise, and one of the reasons we went to war has been taken off the table, that may increase discontent with the decision."

One of the reasons? All of the reasons we went to war have been taken off the table. No WMD. No link to 9/11. No credible threat to the U.S. The only reasons left on the table (the real reasons...the one's that no one in the Bush maladmin will admit to) are: increase U.S. hegemony, control Middle East oil, a boondoggle for "U.S. interests" (i.e. big bidness...HalliBoeiBechtel), and scare the U.S. citizenry into submission so that our freedoms could be stripped thus allowing Repugs to stay in power.

To guard against that, some Republicans say, Bush should move now to acknowledge intelligence problems and make a conspicuous effort to get to the bottom of them.

"Hi, my name is George W. Bush and I have an intelligence problem: I'm an idiot. Me and my fellow Chickenhawk corporate whores are at the bottom of the Iraq debacle." Somehow I don't see it happening.