FIRST, about your theses:

The Left has settled on the WMD issue as their way to get Bush, but like a number of other things they tried, this too may turn around and blow up in their faces.

Honestly Tom, don't you care if the administration told a whopper to get us to go along with a war? I'm not asserting that's what happened, but so far the facts support that explanation as closely as any other. If the cards fall that way, will you change your story around to support a "the lie was justified" defense?

A number of commentators have been pointing out that a hell of a lot of folks besides Bush firmly believed that Saddam had WMD, and was liable to use them.

I listened to the renowned Marxist Rep. Jane Harmon on the leftist propaganda outlet NPR, today at lunchtime. She said she completely believed and still does, that there were stockpiles of WMDs. She says that it is in our interest to determine where they are as quickly as possible, to keep them from falling into the wrong hands. Or to trace whose hands they have already fallen into.

I'm more skeptical than she, but I sure hope she is right that they exist.

Not least of those who touted Saddam's WMD was Bill Clinton and his administration, which was putting this proposition forth as late as the late 90s. If, as several people have claimed, the Iraqi WMD were actually all destroyed right after the Gulf War, what the heck was Clinton using for intelligence data? Was he making it up too? Did the CIA lie to him?

I don’t know enough about Clinton’s intel to have a meaningful discussion about it. Do you? In any case, Clinton apparently didn’t feel that his intel was strong enough to justify conquering Iraq.

Those Republicans back then who thought he WAS largely making it up, and was attacking Iraq to deflect attention from his domestic problems, were angrily ripped new ones by many of the same liberals who are accusing Bush of lying now.

At the risk of helping this thread digress into a Clinton-bash, I’ve gotta say that my memory of the period is different from yours. I don’t recall Democrats ripping anything much, in defense of Clinton. In fact I remember Democrats mainly stepping away from Clinton and doing a “I don’t know him” routine. They were then about as cowardly as the Democrats were when Bush II was selling his war.

SECOND, about the Jonah Goldberg piece:

My response: Well, it may be a "fact that the Bush administration seems to have intentionally and strenuously misled the American people." But that is like saying it is a "fact" that a mirage looks like a Dairy Queen. That it "seems" like Bush lied to the American people may or may not be a fact. But it is far from demonstrated that Bush…

Funny that conservatives are so clear on the difference between proof and appearance when it comes to evaluating a potential presidential snow job. And so confused by that difference when it comes to justifying a war.

To believe that Bush lied, you have to not only believe that the intelligence communities of the United States and Great Britain were wrong, but the intelligence communities of Germany, France, Israel and Russia were wrong too.

This is a big lie. There was no consensus between intelligence agencies. There was not even consensus within our own intelligence community. There were very loud voices in the CIA that characterized the “proofs” as being untrustworthy. I’ve posted a link to an article that was about this very topic twice now, and you’ve failed to comment both times. I won’t do it again. Getting any earwax on those fingers?

Meanwhile, I'm not backing off the WMD thing, in part because I never made that the sole focus of my support for the war in the first place (you could look it up).

Without “looking it up” I guess this means that the Republicans have completely reinvented themselves and they now think it is worth the money to invade all repressive regimes to free the people. [We may want to stop paying these governments foreign aid and military assistance now, to increase our credibility when these invasions begin].

Also, I believe that we'll find WMD.

No one will be happier than me, if we do.