Either Way, This is Bad


A lot of the big blogs have already commented on this WaPo story that goes into more detail on the Niger yellowcake nonsense. My own .000002 cents worth?

They either deliberately lied, or were duped...or maybe Shrub himself lied when he claimed, "fool me...won't get fooled again."

Because, like with other elements of the house-of-cards policy that crafted Operation Iraqi Nightmare Without End, the whole Niger connection had, to paraphrase one Major T.J. "King" Kong, "more holes in [it] than a horse trader's mule," as did most of the other cards that have now toppled over...if only the mess were as simple to pick up.

I suppose opinion in Wingnuttiastan ranged from the naive to the cynical, depending on the relative level of what constitutes something approaching intelligence for them...but, as others and myself have said previously, the sincerety of a particular belief really didn't matter to them, because, well, the end was OF COURSE going to justify the means, and interim-President Chalabi was going to rule over a grateful nation of little Arab consumers...perhaps some would occasionally need, ahem, forceful lessons in "civilized behavior," (the old "white man's burden") but mostly it was to be a happy place...missionaries taping pay-per-view "specials" from Ur...the very first Wal-Mart Souk...and, of course, endless lectures on wingnut superiority from so-called smart guys like Dick Perle and Paul Wolfowitz.

Oh, and how could I forget? A change in name from Firdos Square to George W. Bush Plaza...with a hideously ugly statue of Shrub to boot. Poppy never had anything like that.

Ah, the world was their oyster...back in 2002. Now that shit has met fan, the mad scramble of trying to hold together the pieces until 2009 would be comical if not so tragic. Of course, with the media pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of yer GOP, that becomes a slightly easier task...except for the fact that the public is no longer buying it.

Because stupidity, lies and bullshit aren't a particularly successful set of policy tools, especially in the long run. Even the most casual of observers can see through that.