The Zong

Tony Snow on the President’s upcoming book report on the Iraq War:

“It’s a complicated business and there are a lot of things to take into account,”

Seriously. I mean, I totally couldn’t agree more. Good thing we took all those things into account way back in 2003 when your boss started this stupefying quagmire.

The really embarrassing business here is that the Bushies are simply soliciting information from everyone available, not so they will have a wealth of information, but so they can justify minimal changes in our approach to the war by saying “Well, we had folks other than the Iraq Study Group working on this, and they told Baker and Hamilton to go jump in the lake.”

While Bush welcomed the report as “very constructive,” he made clear he was still waiting for separate Pentagon and State Department reviews. “We’ve got to get the right way forward, this is where Baker-Hamilton helps,” Bush said.

Good thing that the State Department and the Pentagon are weighing in along with a bipartisan, independent panel. Sounds like a fantastic way to get a balanced view of the state of things. I’d have a lot more respect for Bush if he just came out and told the truth about the whole deal: “Thanks for the report, B-H. I can’t comment on it right now until someone washes Dick Cheney’s shit off the table of contents.”

- M.G.