Back to Bert. Apparently, the Evil Doers have decided to pack up and go home and stop chattering. ... Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says the Bush Administration began planning to invade Iraq within days of Bush's inauguration in January 2001, not after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported. No one questioned it. "The president [said] 'Go find me a way to do this.'" ... Changing his tune 180 degrees, Colin Powell now acknowledges that he knows of no "smoking gun [or] concrete evidence" of any ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. David Kay, head of the US-led Iraq Survey Group hunting for weapons, plans to resign without issuing a final report. ... The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment and weapon caches. ... Richard Perle: "I don't think that you can draw any conclusion from the fact that the stockpiles were not found." (Tell that to the nearly 500 dead Americans sent to the slaughter for something millions of Americans could see was an Obvious Lie long before the invasion.) ... As usual, all this information is dumped out on Friday, because Saturday is the day with the lowest newspaper circulation.

SL, Wisconsin: "My family was one of Hitler's victims. We lost a lot under the Nazi occupation, including an uncle who died in the camps and a cousin killed by a booby trap. ... I've seen nothing to eliminate the possibility that Bush is on the same course as Hitler. And I've seen far too many analogies to dismiss the possibility. The propaganda. The lies. The rhetoric. The nationalism. The flag waving. The pretext of 'preventive war'. The flaunting of international law and international standards of justice. The disappearances of 'undesirable' aliens. ... The invasion of a non-threatening sovereign nation. The occupation of a hostile country. ... The spying on ordinary citizens. ... The demonization of government appointed 'enemies'. The establishment of 'Homeland Security'. ... Closed extralegal internment camps. The militarization of domestic police. ..."

TNR: "NASA has not so much as sent a robot probe to the Moon in 30 years, because as far as space-exploration advocates can tell, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, of value to do on the Moon. ... Spending $200 billion on a Moon base that does nothing would be pure, undiluted government waste. ... Either [Bush is] a science illiterate surrounded by advisors who are science illiterates, or it's a blank check for aerospace contractors." Yeah, Bush will do this and cut the deficit in half over the next 5 years. ... Was Saddam drugged? ... More evidence of the LIEberal media.