“If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.”  Trent Lott as quoted in The Hill, 10/29/03

Intelligence isn't just being dumbed-down, but is also being manipulated — and it's continuing. Experts say the recent firefight on the Syrian-Iraq border involved not Saddam Hussein or a family member, as we were led to believe, but just some Iraqi petroleum smugglers. Moreover, Patrick Lang, a former senior D.I.A. official, says that many in the government believe that incursion was an effort by ideologues to disrupt cooperation between the U.S. and Syria.  NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, NY Times 7/15/03

"Overshadowing the military achievement is the failure -- so far -- to find, or explain the absence of, weapons of mass destruction that were the necessary and sufficient justification for preemptive war. The doctrine of preemption -- the core of the president's foreign policy -- is in jeopardy."  George Will, Conservative Columnist, Washington Post 6/22/03

The president's new foreign policy will only anger other countries, and provoke them to take their own "preemptive action."  Robert Scheer, Salon.com.

Gunsmoke and Mirrors

One terrorist attack, two wars, three tax cuts, four months of guerrilla mayhem in Iraq, five silly colors on a terror alert chart, nine nattering Democratic candidates, 10 Iraqi cops killed by Americans, $87 billion in Pentagon illusions, a gazillion boastful Osama tapes, zero Saddam and zilch W.M.D. have left America split evenly between the president and former vice president.

"More than two and a half years after the 2000 election and we are back where we started," marveled John Zogby, who conducted the poll. ..

What unleashed Shock and Awe and the most extravagant display of American military prowess ever was a bunch of theologically deranged Arabs with box cutters. . . .We haven't forgotten all Mr. Bush's bullhorn, dead-or-alive pledges. . .His gunsmoke has gone up in smoke.  MAUREEN DOWD, NY Times 9/14/03