Good Googly Moogly

I saw the President's interview last night on 60 Minutes. Three things struck me immediately. First, the President is very concerned that if our troops leave Iraq, chaos and political instability will ensue. Iran will take a larger role in Mid East politics and the region may be destabilized. Trouble is, Mr. President, all of those things are happening now.

Second, the President insisted that "everyone was wrong on weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. Everyone, that is, except our own weapons inspector, the U.N., the U.N. weapons inspector, our allies, and some in our own intelligence agencies. No, Mr. President, everyone who told you what you wanted to hear was wrong about WMD.

Third, the President seemed to say that the Mid East was more stable today because he deposed Saddam Hussein. On a balance of power analysis this is just wrong. The secular Saddam was an important check on Islamists in the region. On a different level, Saddam was an isolated autocrat reduced to veiled threats and empty rhetoric. He had no capability of building an arsenal of weapons. His army was in shambles. He was the poster boy for the efficacy of UN sanctions (save the botched oil for food program that the U.N and Great Britain botched). Suggesting that Saddam was some sort of smoldering volcano just does not comport with the facts.

But then again, this has never been a fact based Presidency.