Mixed messages of a failing presidency

I find it fascinating that Colin Powell appears to be spending his last days in the Bush administration constructing an extended mea culpa for his role in pushing the United States to hit the Iraqi tar baby. First he admitted that the administration received and used intelligence that was deliberately misleading. Now he has expressed regret that the administration claimed specific knowledge of Iraqi stockpiles of WMD as justification for the invasion of Iraq.

Powell, at least, seems to realize that something went wrong when the Bush administration followed the rabbit down the hole.

Connie Rice, on the other hand, continues to exemplify the permanent state of denial in which the Bushies live:

Rice also defended comments she made September 8, 2002, on CNN that Iraq was trying to buy aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program -- part of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq.

A New York Times report Sunday cited Rice's comments and quoted CIA and administration officials as saying that Department of Energy experts told her staff almost a year before -- in 2001 -- that they thought the tubes were for artillery rockets, not for creating nuclear weapons.

Rice said she was vaguely aware of a debate about the tubes but believed that the intelligence community "as a whole" agreed they were meant for nuclear weapons work.

Is she kidding? Unfortunately not. It's telling and most likely true. She was probably only vaguely aware of the debate because the entire crowd was so focused on finding information to support the invasion.

It would be bad enough that Rice is willfully ignorant of the warnings of her own intelligence services, but it is truly astounding what she said next.

Rice defended Bush's decision to invade Iraq as "central to the war on terror," which went beyond dealing with al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"The idea that you just deal with Osama bin Laden and you're through with the war on terror simply is not a good understanding of the war on terror," she said.

Incredibly, Ms. Rice seems to suggest that the US has actually dealt with Osama Bin laden. Further, she seems to think that her strategic detractors see the world as simply as she does. She is separated from reality

John Kerry eviscerated Bush in the first debate, never more so than when John Kerry pointed out to the President that it was Osama Bin Laden that attacked us not Saddam Hussein, to which the President rejoined:

First of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that.

With that answer, President Bush acknowledged that Hussein did not attack the US.

So let me get this straight. Our Secretary of State is telling the world that he is sorry for using faulty intelligence in his presentation to the UN in order to justify invading Iraq. Yet the National Security Advisor is continuing to justify that some of same intelligence. And you admit we attacked a country that did not attack us in response to an attack from a well known terrorist organization. Would it be fair to call the difference between what the president says and what the facts support a mixed message?

I refer you all to the President's primary message of the first debate:

You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens.