Dissembler in Chief

Politico has read Ron Suskind's new book:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”

Politico has more interesting stuff about the workings of the White House and the deliberate use of Cheney to preserve willful ignorance on Bush's part as to the illegal actions of his administration.

Impeachment

Kucinich is continuing in his efforts to impeach Bush and getting no cooperation from the House Democratic leadership.

While I agree with the Democrats' decision not to impeach, I am going on record as saying that impeachment of Bush would not be inappropriate. Bush's actions (e.g., torture, trumped up case for Iraq, politicization of the Justice Department, violations of civil liberties, evasion of Congressional oversight; executive signing statements; Valerie Plame) are far worse than Clinton's and probably worse than Watergate.

However, I tend to think that impeachment is probably outdated. In addition to facing re-election after four years, presidents are now limited to two terms. The country can survive four to eight years of all but the most egregious abuses. The divisiveness and disruption of impeachment proceedings probably outweighs the potential benefit.

With Clinton, and to a certain extent with Bush, the impeachment movement is partially based upon politics and frustration with failure to defeat the President upon re-election. As I said, there are grounds for impeachment, but at this point the only purpose of impeachment would be to try to override the election and embarrass the President. That doesn't justify the national trauma of impeachment.