Staying Power...

Why is it, more often than not, that which has no spine has more staying power?

Last night, on the CBS show "60 Minutes" correspondent Ed Bradley interviewed a gentleman by the name of Tyler Drumheller who had been an official with the CIA, in a key position, during those lean and mean (mostly mean) days before the U.S. decided to invade, and occupy, the once sovereign state of Iraq.

In calling the White House's decision to take our sons and daughters to war in Iraq on the basis of false, and deliberately doctored intelligence, "One of the great policy mistakes of all time," Mr. Drumweller isn't merely engaging in the lost, and vastly underestimated, art of understatement, but affirming what most of us already know about this administration's California stop approach to diplomacy, as well as its propensity for selective perception where intelligence is concerned. What's baffling is how any government that has credibility with one-third of its people can boast of greater staying power than the average inner city cockroach. Even former White House counsel during the Nixon years, John Dean, suggests that the acts of this administration make Watergate look like a walk in the park, yet, like the ever ready battery, this White House just keeps going, and going.

During last night's broadcast, Drumheller also corroborates the findings of the Downing Street Memo that the intelligence which suggested a WMD threat was tweaked to justify the invasion, a fact which many in this administration, as well as in the American media, have routinely, and stubbornly ignored. The question is why????

During last night's interview, with correspondent Ed Bradley, the eye opener came with Mr. D's revelation that this administration knew two days prior to announcing its decision to go to war that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, as well as that reports about Niger and enriched uranium were false. While we've had leaks of malice aforethought from the press before, this is the first time an official who worked for the CIA came forward and confirmed unequivocally that this president, and his administration, lied to Congress, and the American people. If we wanted the "smoking gun," here it is, and unless we're smoking it, it's time to get up from our sofas and demand answers from a government that we elected that took an oath of office to protect, preserve, and defend us, as well as the Constitution, an oath that we now know they've not only violated, but defaced.

As Mr. Drumweller says when he told the White House group that was in the midst of preparing for war that there were no active WMDs, and asked them "What about the intel?," the response he got was "Well, this isn't about intel anymore. this is about regime change." Indeed, we couldn't agree more. The American people has all the intelligence we need, in every possible sense of the word, and clearly "regime change" is now in order.