ADPR writes:

When Bush was on the air carrier and declared that, by winning the war in Iraq, we had struck against the 9/11 terrorists, it was the most cynical, shameless statement I've ever heard a political make.

I guess what I'm thinking is: Cynical and shameless I can live with. All presidents are liars and manipulators; Bill Clinton was just my kind of liar and manipulator. What I find most disturbing about the shifting sands of Bush's justifications is that it seems clear that Bush feels he doesn't even have to bother giving us a coherent lie, because he knows that most Americans don't actually need a good reason to go to war, and that the media and members of Congress are too cowed or compromised to ask real questions.

I believe in the cynicism and calculation of the Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice axis; they've been looking for a chance for war with Iraq for over a decade, and 9/11 was merely (this is what most sickens me) the perfect cover story for their agenda. What I loathe and fear in Bush is not his cynicism; it's his apparent sincerity. When you see Bush declaring that the war in Iraq is a strike against the terrorists of 9/11, you see a man who appears to believe what he's saying--that the forces of "evil" are one and are everywhere and that any blow America strikes is a blow for good. Does Bush "know" that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11? Yes; but it doesn't matter; it's all one evil everywhere, and one thirst for revenge.