So McCain thinks we didn't use "enough force" and what was needed was carnage without constraint? Is he wrong about that?

Presumably, if you're willing to kill everybody you've got a pretty good chance of "winning", right? So the logic of McCain's argument is we just need to kill them all? Short of that, those pesky Inhabitants will still be there to be pesky, though, right? As pointed out upstream, (1) how many million Vietnamese civilians actually died in that conflict, versus the American casualties? (2) wasn't the last "relatively successful" externally-imposed regime change really Rome over Judea? and (3) look how well USSR did in Afghanistan even with the ability to avoid domestic "debate" the merits of the invasion; and (4) (the one I really liked) If a foreign power invaded the US to "Liberate" us from Bush-Cheney, what would the consequent "insurgency" look like as Americans thought their freedom threatened and what would it take to "defeat" that?

Sure, if you kill everybody, you could well call yourself a "victor". What have you won? And are you weak of Will if you question whether the slaughter of an entire population might not be morally or even economically justified?

I seriously doubt that, in a presidential campaign, even John McCain would accept the logical consequences of the argument he is making. I would hope that the American people would not accept it. Somebody ought to ask McCain what he means by suggesting we did not bomb enough, or kill enough, in Vietnam. What would the right number have been, given what we now know it was? More than a little bit chilling when the "not enough" abstraction is put directly into the terms of human deaths.

Let's stop re-fighting old wars in current entanglements, and evaluate the situations that Bush has created on their own merits. That's when progress can begin.

It used to be that "trust me, I'm with the Government and I'm here to help you" was the saracastic cliche of choice.

That's way more verbose than necessary. Let's just go with "Trust me, I'm with the Government."

GG hits the nail on the head: these people don't think even once, let alone twice, about lying because there is no accountability. None. Libby? None.

Somebody like this DiRita clown needs to be indicted over run-of-the-mill, "everybody in the Bush Administration does this" falsehoods like those displayed here. Maybe the clown who said "750 suicides tops" to Congress then sent around an e-mail with "shhh" in it when describing the actual count internally. Why should anyone be worried about Bush wiping away critical months of e-mail if there's nothing that would be done with incriminating e-mail even when it's disclosed?

Pull the strings around the edges and watch it fray to the core.

I agree with the sentiment that I'd be more surprised if Rove was not involved than to learn that he was. But I'm much more concerned that this frightening spectacle of orchestrated propaganda not lose steam over it. Put another way, whattya gonna do, subpoena Karl Rove? There's an issue that is already framed elsewhere and could easily become the easy dodge for those trying to avoid responsibility in this instance: let Rove run out the clock in another diversionary stonewall of a congressional subpoena, meanwhile the roaches scatter.

Instead, I say keep the criminal focus on the players we know. Let them be indicted, let them plead "I vas only following ze orders." That's when some accountability may start being demanded.

OK, so the Bush White House, in the person of Karl Rove, took an interest in trying to whitewash the war. As objectively disgraceful as that might be, there's nobody in the world, except maybe Doug Feith (except when he's lucid), who doubts that. But here we have concrete evidence of how it was done, at the level of those who committed the felonies. Let's go get those guys! Move in that direction, forcefully, see who has to follow as it unfolds. I think worrying about Karl Rove might play right into the hands of those who are looking for a way to dismiss this very serious problem as nothing but a diversion in an election year.

Klein is just unbelievable. Unbelievable. After the things he's done in the past few months, he has the sterno-blinded chutzpah to write "show me where I have erred"? Thanks for showing him a bit, GG, and I can't wait for the "I had neither the time nor the expertise to have determined whether that little insignificant piece was accurate."

That quoted piece, though, viewed through the lens of today's reality and having been educated by real investigations done since then by real interested persons instead of the propaganda of the time as reflected in the quoted piece itself, is fascinating. Did Klein's motivation consist of anything more substantive than that of a kid trying to call attention to himself in the hope of being invited to sit at the "adults' table" for Thanksgiving dinner? Is a banal desire to obtain approval from those in control really the explanation for this kind of claptrap journalism? I'd be interested in knowing who gave Klein an "audience" in the following week as a reward for writing this piece.

TIME's editors should be required to go back and read everything this guy has written in the past five years. Maybe then they would spare us further exposure.