>
> Doug writes:
>
> > But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush
> > administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist
> > operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself - but never pulled the
> > trigger.
> >
> > these guys aren't even good at what they claim they're good at.
>
Let's fill in the words you left out, no doubt inadvertently:
> So NBC News says "here's some
genuine Al Qaida-related
> terrorists,
over _here_, part of that same mob who murdered three thousand Americans,
> Bush didn't pull the trigger" and you're disappointed;
> Bush says "here's some terrorists
way over _there_, "terrorists" in name only, who had nothing whatsoever to do with any terrorist acts against the U.S.A. ever, which fact has been demonstrated to the entire world beyond the possibility of refutation, and the only link between them and the nine-eleven gang was a fabricated one which is now long since exploded,
> " and pulls the trigger and you're disappointed.
> Swell.
You mean "swollen."
One can repeat and repeat and repeat the obvious truism "Osama does not equal Saddam" but there would seem to be a zillion or so people for whom it'll repeatedly go in one ear and out the other. I used to think they were just playing dumb to piss me off, but I'm beginning to think it's kind of like that story about Averroes and "comedy and tragedy," even people much smarter than I will ever be suffer from this incurable blind spot.
But why? I could understand it in a dumbass NASCAR fan who gets half his news from Rish Limbaugh and the other half off Fox News, and I could see certain Machiavellian schemers with dark ulterior motives play-acting like they don't get it, but I don't understand genuinely intelligent people, with nothing to gain personally, refusing to make the distinction.
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net