Hack Richard Cohen slams the Bush administration again

A few days ago I wrote You Know Bush is in Trouble when he's lost that hack Richard Cohen.

In A War Without Winners Richard Cohen gives several examples of a middle east on the edge, ready to explode. It's not a better place because Bush invaded Iraq but a very unstable and dangerous place.

Well Cohen has done it again today in Ignoring the Facts

In one of the most intellectually incoherent major speeches ever delivered by a minor president, George W. Bush blamed "some Democrats and antiwar critics" last week for changing their minds about the war in Iraq and now saying they were deceived. "It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the president said. Yes, sir, but it is even more deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how history was rewritten in the first place.

It is the failure to acknowledge this -- not merely that mistakes were made -- that is so troubling about Bush and others in his administration. Yes, the president is right: Foreign intelligence services also thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Yes, he is right that members of Congress drew the same conclusion -- although none of them saw the raw intelligence that the White House did. And he is right, too, that Saddam Hussein had simply ignored more than a dozen U.N. resolutions demanding that he reopen his country to arms inspectors. When it came to U.N. resolutions, Hussein was notoriously hard of hearing.

Some tough words from a former shill and even throws in a few facts which is like Dorthy throwing water on the wicked witch. And he has some more facts about the Bush administration's complete disregard of the facts.

It did not matter that Mohamed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 terrorists, never met with Iraqis in Prague, as high-level Bush officials claimed. It did not matter that Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was finding no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. None of that mattered to Vice President Cheney, who warned of a "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program, promoted the nonexistent Prague meeting and went after legitimate critics with a zealousness that Tony Soprano would have admired: "We will not hesitate to discredit you," Cheney told ElBaradei and Hans Blix, the other important U.N. inspector. ElBaradei recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. Cheney's gonna have to wait for his.

Punish the fact givers while rewarding the liars.

Nobody has been repudiated by Bush for incompetence and dishonesty regarding Iraq. Instead, some -- former CIA director George "Slam-Dunk" Tenet comes to mind -- have received presidential medals. What's more, there's evidence aplenty that the sloppy thinking, false analogies and bad history that led to the Iraq war remain the cultural style of the White House. The president's recent speech, for instance, conflates all sorts of terrorist incidents -- from Israel to Chechnya -- neglecting that they are specific to their regions and have nothing to do with al Qaeda. Every bombing somehow becomes an attack on Western values "because we stand for democracy and peace." Oh, stop it!

Richard Cohen is like the lawmakers who read the polls and don't want to be on the "wrong side". This was all known a year ago Richard, where were you then? If a few more of you pundits had been born again in 2004 we might not have this disastrous administration in the White House now. Sorry Richard, too little too late.

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