Dazed and Confused


Billmon raises a subject that has been bothering me for a couple of days. Why the turnaround? As recently as last Sunday on Meet the Press, Cheney was still hinting at a Saddam/al Qaida connection, but in the last couple of days the rest of the administration has done a 180 on this subject. When I first heard Rummy contradict Cheney, I figured his days were numbered, but with Condi and Bush on the "Saddam has no ties to al Qaida" bandwagon, I am just plain perplexed.

Josh Marshall makes a similar point here.

And Tom Tomorrow poses the same questions. Are we all too suspicious of some kind of Machiavellian conspiracy behind this, or is it indeed, as Tom asks, "Are they just so insanely short sighted that they're reacting solely to criticism of Cheney's Meet The Press appearance, without any thought to the larger implications of what they're saying?"