Cynical Nation

It's fascinating to see how the conclusions of the 9-11 Commission are being reported. Last month, casual headline readers could be forgiven for concluding there was "no link" between Iraq and al Qaeda, even though readers of the entire story found that the truth was considerably more nuanced (by the way, I thought it was conservatives who eschewed nuance in favor of simplistic, binary thinking. Oh well.)

And now there's this:

"The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

So reads Conclusion 83 of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. The Committee likewise found no evidence of pressure to link Iraq to al Qaeda.

Now I know that a 50-point headline reading "Bush vindicated!" would perhaps be expecting a little too much, but this is a significant piece of information that belies the pervasive "Bush lied!" meme. Who wants to join me in holding my breath until the apologies start rolling in? Any takers? Anyone? Beuller?