The problem with poking fun at the Bush Administration is it’s becoming just too damn easy. I keep telling myself it’s time to move on to different topics, but then a shiny new gem is uncovered. Sure it’s like picking off the proverbial fish in a barrel, but I lack the willpower to stop. And really, who can resist such obscenely tantalizing material? Consider the following roster of missteps, most occurring just within the past couple of weeks:

1) Not only have we failed to find the once-feared weapons of mass destruction in Iraq threatening our hemisphere, there is now speculation the threat was deliberately overblown to justify the invasion. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is being crucified by opponents for claiming Iraq had the capability to launch a biological and chemical attack within 45 minutes. Seems like a bit of an overstatement in retrospect, to say the least. Robin Cook, Blair’s foreign secretary until Cook resigned over the war, is among those now howling for an investigation.

2) U.S. News and World Report says Secretary of State Colin Powell was pressured to use unsubstantiated information when he made the Bush team’s pitch for war to the United Nations back in February. Powell was so wary of including potential fictions he reportedly assembled his own review team to help weedthem out of his presentation. Meanwhile, the Washington Post reported Thursday that CIA analysts also felt pressured by repeated visits from Dick Cheney to cook intelligence data fulfilling the White House’s recipe or war.

3) The BBC says the rescue of U.S. Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch - probably the key rallying point of the war for Americans - may have been staged for dramatic effect. Evidence indicates there were no enemy troops on hand when Lynch’s rescuers charged into the hospital. At the very least it appears details of Lynch’s Rambo-like capture - in which she allegedly blasted away at enemy soldiers until she ran out of ammo and was taken only after being shot and stabbed - were exaggerated at best and downright fabricated at worst. She had neither bullet nor stab wounds.

4) Former Secretary of the Army Tim White told CNN this week Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon underestimated the number of troops necessary to occupy Iraq. You might recall when then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress a while back several hundred thousand troops would be needed for such anoccupation, he was essentially rebuked by Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Now we’re hearing the more than 150,000 troops attempting to restore Iraq are not enough. Meanwhile, they’re also fighting to stay alive.

5) Within days of each other, Rumsfeld acknowledged Iraq may have disposed of its weapons before the war and Wolfowitz admitted the focus on weapons of mass destruction was a "bureaucratic decision" to rally support for the invasion plans. These remarks ignited the weapons issue throughout Europe and helped spark the furor now facing Tony Blair. (Don’t you wonder if Blair is asking himself why he ever got mixed up with these morons? And isn’t Rumsfeld just the kind of poetic pal you’d want to make the toast at your wedding reception?)

6) Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a fellow Republican, criticized Bush two weeks ago for fumbling the post-war effort in Iraq. "I am concerned that the Bush Administration and Congress have not yet faced up to the true size of the task that lies ahead, or prepared the American people for it," Lugar, himself a former presidential candidate, wrote in the Washington Post. The plans for rebuilding Iraq didn’t seem nearly as defined as the plan to invade it, he said.

7) Even now, no evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks on Americans or linking him to Osama bin Laden has been uncovered. On the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, Bush called Iraq an "ally of al-Qaeda" but as usual still hasn’t backed the claim with facts. Just this week he told American troops inQatar "no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more." Of course, he neglected to mention we’re not even sure Iraq was in the mass weapons-peddling business in the first place.

8) Neither Osama nor Saddam nor Saddam’s psycho sons nor, apparently, Saddam’s cousin "Chemical Ali" have been apprehended yet. In fact, we’re not even sure whether they are dead or alive, although it now seems Chemical Ali isn’t as dead as we thought.

9) As witnessed by the recent wave of terrorist attacks across the globe attributed to al-Qaeda, bin Laden’s thugs haven’t realized they are supposed to be reeling from the crushing U.S. victory in Iraq which was somehow related to our war against them.

10) You see where this is going, right? The Bush Administration prodded the intelligence community for information to help promote its war campaign, highlighted what they wanted and used it as the basis for the attack. Now when they’re questioned about the veracity of their claims they can shrug and say, "Hey, that’s the information we were given."

Powell in particular has emphasized CIA Director George Tenet’s role in reviewing the data with him, and insisted on having Tenet sit behind him when he made his UN presentation. Now the CIA - realizing it may be the scapegoat of the Bush team - is leaking reports of how the data was used to advance a political agenda. Let the finger-pointing begin. I mean, talk about the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

Now some U.S. lawmakers are calling for congressional hearings to find out whether the Bush Administration truly did overhype the threat posed by Iraq. Republican Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former secretary of the Navy (as well as one of Liz Taylor’s ex-husbands), has said his panel will take part in such a probe. But somehow House Majority Leader Tom DeLay thinks this is all unfair.

"They pick at every little thing they can to try to undermine this president and where he is taking us on this war on terror," he said of Bush’s critics. First, let’s get it straight - the Bush team created its own problems. With few exceptions like Sen. Robert Byrd (how ridiculous is it when a reformed Klansman has to carry the banner of moral courage for the Democratic Party?), Congress has rolled over for the White House on the Iraq issue. With even fewer exceptions, the mainstream American media (especially the network news teams) have been gutless sycophants.

But it seems to me Bush supporters should welcome an investigation, to prove to the world the Iraq war has justified. Especially now, since these reports have stolen the spotlight from W’s efforts to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians and to rally Europe behind the war on terrorism. Unfortunately, he’s damaged his own credibility at a time when America could be the big brother everyone looks up to. And if the Bush Administration isn’t misrepresenting (or straight-out lying about) the existence of these massive weapons, wouldn’t it be smart to try to find them before some demented terrorist does? Even if it means accepting help from the UN weapons inspectors?

D. Allan Kerr thinks these congressional hearings would make for great reality TV, especially if they’re hosted by the rude British guy from "American Idol."

What a bunch of Bozos - if Bozo was a Serial Killer.

Bumpity, bumpity, bumpity.

...you can't see that a good thing was done.

You'd rather crucify Bush than admit that it's good Saddam is gone.

Shoot, if you'd gotten your way, Saddam would still be in one of his 40-odd palaces, putting people through the plastic shredder just for laughs. Imprisoning children. Filling holes with thousands of dead bodies.

How the heck can you people live with yourselves?

You know it would be a good thing - if it were true. However, whether you want to admit it or not the Conquest of Iraq was not conducted out of Humanitarian motives to “liberate” the Iraqi People from Saddam’s Rule.

It was conducted purely and simply out of greed and the desire for power. It was done to “liberate” the Iraqi Oil Fields from Saddam’s “evil” Rule. The Focus Grouped PR line that you keep Parroting - that opposition to the Bush Junta’s Conquest, at the expense of many lives, sold on many lies, is equivalent to support for Saddam is of course false. You know it, I know it, and anyone with a brain knows it. Even Wolfoshitz admitted it in his “floating on a Sea of Oil” comment. Amazing how fast that was scrubbed from “mainstream” “News” Sites.

Perhaps you find it amusing to “confound” those of us support War only as last option when all others have been exhausted. It is not confounding, merely an irritation, and frequently an amusement. Your side of this argument is so bankrupt that you can no longer bring forth a positive argument favoring your position. The most you can do is to deride, taunt, and confuse. The only argument you have is to keep repeating the same tire old lies. And I will keep refuting them because in the end the truth will out.

“The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it sets free those who have loved it.”

-- George Santayana

In the end “Operation Iraqi Liberation” - OIL for short - was only about power and money nothing more. Nothing altruistic, nothing to be proud of; merely venal men, and women, in positions of power using the military might to do illegally what they could not do legally.

In the end it is really simple: BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED. It really is that simple.





911 - What Really Happened?

ROFL.

More comedy from the master.

Complete with, yet another, quoted non-sequitor.

Dio continues his dominance of his mother's basement.

at which I should know about, are hard to get rif of, like the truth.

you're right, Diogenes, they are reduced to scratching and biteing.

kinda funny.

The truth resides on the side without paranoia and fear.

And that sure ain't your side.

Oh, the awful Slings and Arrows I am cut so deeply that I must seek sucrease. Oh, the inhumanity of it all.

ROFL!

...Saddam's STILL gone.

No matter what the reason for the war (not that it was any of the crap you're saying), he's still gone.

And that's.

A.

Good.

Thing.

You'd admit it, if you had any integrity.

"Bush lied---people died". Cool. You get that off a bumper sticker?

...that having Saddam gone would be a bad thing.

I have argued that the War was:

A. Not necessarily needed to remedy the problem. It has in fact created more problems that it allegedly solved. People are still dying - not just Iraqi's either. Our Soldiers are now "fair Game" to the Iraqis.

B. The war was not conducted to merely effect "Regime Change" or "Liberate the Iraqi People". As Wolfowitz has effectively admitted. Saddam was just another brutal thug like the many that have been installed or propped up as "instruments" of American, Business Driven, Foreign Policy.

You may stage all the PR gambits and PsyOp confusions you wish. More people are becoming aware each day. Despite the Death Grip your masters have on the Press they did not count on the power of the Internet to spread information. People are bypassing the Press and looking for other sources. But of course you know that - that's why you're here - to confuse and divert.

BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED. It's really that simple.