And in none of them have you come up with any real argument other than continued ad hominems directed at Rice. Do the people you normally argue with fall for this?

Olbermann, like Coulter, appeals to people who like to let words wash over the surfaces of their brains, and don't really care if there's anything to them or not.

WALLACE: Let's turn to Iraq talking now about rewriting the 2002 congressional authorization for the use of force in Iraq.

Given that our mission there has changed so dramatically over the last four years, don't they have a point?

RICE: We don't need to do anything but to allow the commanders on the ground — General Petraeus, who's gone out there as the new commander — to pursue the course that he and other commanders have put together and have recommended to the president. That's what we need to concentrate on as a country.

I know it's extremely difficult. And yes, as the president has said, we've now overthrown Saddam Hussein. We are in a different situation, even, some would say, a different war. But the consolidation of a stable and democratic Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is a part of what America owes to the Iraqi people, owes to the region and owes to ourselves so that our own security is there.

Chris, it would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change, then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown. It's a part of a continuum of what we're trying to do in Iraq.

I read this as trying to change the rules in midstream, like undeclaring the war with Germany and cutting out just because the bombing had stopped. I grant it's a bit fuzzy, but it sure as hell doesn't rate the hysterics being directed at this one small analogy.

Again, I don't need Olbermann, of all people, telling me how smart Rice is. I dare say I know a lot more about it than he does.