Perhaps what threw me off was that it was just the launching pad for a somewhat formulaic paen to rich Conservatives with a counterpoint of trashing me and Liberals in general.

But OK, I apologize for being distracted. To address your argument about the WMD doorway: Prove it. I mean that not to be pugnacious, but to simply point out that you're only speculating that the brilliant masterminds of the Bush Administration had this clever plan in mind all along. You're giving them retroactive credit for an unbelievable amount of omniscience and prescience through a filter of hindsight, attributing knowledge to them that didn't surface until much later, after the war. Without supporting evidence to the contrary, it's just spin without a leg to stand on.

I had to go look at the TOC to get oriented, there's been so much good information being posted today. It's easy for the conversations to fragement, and end up with a discussion here out of sync with discussions elsewhere. Tom posted a link in another thread to a <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060501faessay85301/kevin-woods-james-lacey-williamson-murray/saddam-s-delusions-the-view-from-the-inside.html>; Foreign Affairs article about the newly-released Iraqi documents, and it sheds some bright light on what in fact all the parties were thinking at the time. It's highly relevant to your argument, and I suggest you read it. I'll wait (sorry, trying to be funny, it's twelve pages long and I don't expect to finish it myself until sometime tomorrow). I posted some preliminary reactions here.