Zombie Cheney Speaks From Beyond the Grave

Seriously, where's that guy been for the past three years? Like Punxsutawney Phil, Dick Cheney has just poked his head out to make his annual statement, and like Punxsutawney Phil, it's really meaningful.

According to the whack-a-mole Vice President, if John Kerry had been in charge of the military the last few years, Saddam Hussein would still be in power. And it only took two Bushes to get rid of him!

If Kerry was in charge we might also have caught Bin Laden. But Dick is probably right, Saddam Hussein would probably still be in power and the US wouldn't be stuck trying to cobble together an barely functioning Iraqi government that hopefully won't implode long enough for us to get the hell out.

Speaking of the new Iraq, a lot of conservatives have been bitching about how the liberal media only focuses on the daily bombings and murders in Iraq when hospitals are being built, electricity often runs and three out of seven Iraqis love us. You know why? Because these things mean exactly shit. So we put up some hospitals? Great! When the new US sponsored government crumbles, at the thugs and terrorists that move in will have nice hospitals. The fact is, the Bush team can't honestly claim victory in Iraq, until US troops have not only pulled out, but the new Iraqi government proves it can stand on its own two feet. Otherwise, the country falls apart and the newly liberated Iraqis get stuck with someone as bad, if not worse than Saddam. Fortunately, this probably won't happen until after November.

Condoleeza Rice was on Meet the Press Sunday and Tim Russert asked her about justification for war in Iraq on the grounds that it was "urgent" or "imminent" and cited several places where Bush, for instance said it was urgent, or someone else said it was imminent. Rice answered that what Bush actually said in his state of the union was that Iraq couldn't be allowed to become an imminent threat. Which is true enough, but Russert didn't mention the State of the Union, and Rice didn't bother to address any of the statements that Russert did mention, including the out of context one that Bush's Press Secretary said "This is about an imminent threat", which would have been an easy point. Instead Rice blathered about what Bush said
State of the Union speech, to which Russert should have responded that Bush said Saddam had been trying to buy Uranium from Africa, so of course we should really go buy Bush's state of the Union. No one without severe attention deficit disorder can honestly claim that the administration didn't overplay the danger to the US posed by Iraq, considering statements by the president about how we can't wait for proof, because it could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. And yet, look at what Bush's own pet inspector says about Saddam's quest for nukes, in the same report the Bush administration used to justify taking the country to war on the grounds of WMD.

In other news: Information Is Treason and The 9/11 Tax Giveaway
by Timothy Noah