6.9.03 -- Is it fair to accuse George Bush of fabricating the WMD argument as a justification for attacking Iraq? Certainly, you could blame others around him for doing so, but perhaps not him. What's the distinction? It actually has to do with the fuzzy way in which someone of his self-centered and histrionic nature relates to the facts.

The journalist, Molly Ivins, recently recalled an anecdote about Bush concerning the Karly Faye Tucker case. Tucker was the convicted murderer who appealed her death sentence to then-Governor Bush in 1998. Tucker, who became a born-again Christian in prison, was deemed rehabilitated by virtually everyone who evaluated her. When it came to Bush, though, he was recalled to have said: 'I know all the facts say she is rehabilitated, but in my heart I just can't help feeling that she is not.' With that, Tucker's death appeal was denied.

When George Bush said this week that he is convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, I believe that he believed it. People around him may be spinning the truth, but they don't live in Bush's impressionistic, relative reality. If deception of the public is a real problem with this administration, it seems the scarier issue is Bush's tendency to deceive himself.