Debriefing Bush

"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." That, in a nutshell, is George W. Bush's valedictory thought about invading Iraq, in interviews with Charlie Gibson on ABC this week.

"A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is [sic] a reason to remove Saddam Hussein," Bush added.

But the historical record shows that the "lot of people" consisted mainly of Dick Cheney and his henchman, relying on a swindling Ahmad Chalabi and torturing CIA intelligence into a false case against the Iraqi regime he was salivating to replace.

"We've really got to make the case" against Hussein, Bush told Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, "and I want you to make it" at the UN.

A few days later, according to the Washington Post, Powell was "taken aback" by "a 48-page, single-spaced compilation of Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, replete with drama, rhetorical devices and a kitchen sink full of allegations. The most extreme version of every charge the administration had made about Hussein, the document had been written, Powell concluded, under the tutelage of Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who shared all of his boss's hard-line views and then some."

In blaming faulty intelligence for a misbegotten war, Bush is exposing himself to history's choice of branding him either a fool or a lethal liar.

He would have done much better by looking back to George Washington's farewell words as he left the presidency:

"The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."

McCain Didn't Google Deep Enough

A few months ago, the Republican candidate told backers that choosing a running mate was easy. "You know, basically it's a Google. What you can find out now on the Internet--it's remarkable."

Now it appears that vetting his last-minute choice of Sarah Palin was no search engine slam dunk as a traffic jam of revelations clogs the path to her nomination and raises once again the question of whether McCain's shoot-from-the-hip temperament is suitable for a 21st century presidency.

The list keeps growing--the ethics investigation of her firing the state's public safety commissioner for not firing her former brother-in-law; her membership in a party that advocated Alaskan secession from the Union; her support for the Bridge to Nowhere before opposing it, along with such family items as her teenage daughter's pregnancy and husband's drunk driving arrest.

What's more troubling than any of these disclosures is the fact that the decision was so impulsive, the fact-finding behind it so slipshod and, worst of all, that McCain's staff is so clearly lying about the process to cover up its shortcomings.

After seven years of an Administration that manipulated intelligence for life-or-death decisions, the last thing the nation needs is a new President who can't even keep the information-gathering on his running mate from going off the rails.