You mean the neocons are wrong and our intelligence commuity, far from being a bunch of unprofessional losers, are actually still professional and capable enough to penetrate the highest levels of Iranian gov’t and then smuggle our man out from under their noses?

Somehow I think if the neocons were in charge they would have leaked his status to the WSJ and then, since he was no longer useful, sat on their hands as he was executed.

But the examinee is limited to those facts, and no answer, however well written, will receive a passing score if it relies upon information made up by the test-taker. We’re all entitled to our own opinions, but we’re not entitled to our own facts.

The issue here is who is to blame for the NIE scandal?

The WSJ spots the issue and reaches the correct conclusion, for Bush is responsible for this latest mess. So I’d give them 20 points for that. But their reasoning is faulty and they simply made up most of their “facts,” so they get no points for that section.

Total score = 20/100 (Fail)

Sadly, this isn’t a test. Watching the neocons try to make up reality as they go along would be funny if it wasn’t tragically real.

The Wall Street Journal had this to say about the NIE:In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy to frame a new judgment in a way that has undermined four years of U.S. effort to stop

This make an attack on Iran less likely, because an attack on a facility to produce nuclear fuel for peaceful purposes – lacks credibilty. Let’s take a look at the board again. Assume this is about oil. The goal remains; deliver oil to the ‘right’ companies.

Iran is a threat; they could easily annex a chunk of the best oil fields in Iran if US forces are withdrawn or the mission redefined to be anti-terrorist only. So here’s the new game; a military strike against Iran is off the table; and only 13 months remain to physically secure the oil fields for US oil companies prior to a drawdown of troops under a Dem president.

Remember, it’s not enough to secure contracts with the gov’t in the green zone. The ‘good guys’ (US oil companies) have to secure reliable access to the wells. Keep your eye on the ball.

…Dying empires cling until the very end to the outward trappings of power. They mask their weakness behind a costly and technologically advanced military. They pursue increasingly unrealistic imperial ambitions. They stifle dissent with efficient and often ruthless mechanisms of control. They lose the capacity for empathy, which allows them to see themselves through the eyes of others, to create a world of accommodation rather than strife. The creeds and noble ideals of the nation become empty cliches, used to justify acts of greater plunder, corruption and violence. By the end, there is only a raw lust for power and few willing to confront it….

The NIE report will just lull everyone back to sleep, and then we will go to war after manufacturing an attack on the US that can be blamed on Iran, or Israel will attack them and they retaliate, and then it is bombs away. Count on it.

People believe Iran still pursues nuclear weapons because any sane country would want to have nuclear weapons to deter the US from invading them. This does not mean they support war with Iran because people understand Iran is not suicidal, and using them would be national suicide, so they are not a threat.

People say Bush denies reality. This is untrue. The neocons are making their own reality, Bush is just a puppet, and when you control congress, the MSM, and everyone else, thats easy to do.

But “internal disputes about post-invasion Iraq”? Yikes! I guess it’s all the CIA’s fault for arguing against handing out millions of small American flags to the greatful masses.

Welch hated bureaucracy, and he hated mangers who would bullshit him, painting a rosy picture when the facts didn’t support it – hence his saying: “Get Real”. Welch understood there was such a thing as Reality, and you had better not play games with it, because there are real world consequences – bad ones – if you do.

And so it boggles my mind that the WSJ – long an admirer of titans like Welch, and which I admit I haven’t read in a long time – buys the Bush notion that you can create your own reality, and encourages the turning of reality on its head, by blaming the intelligence agencies for not giving Bush what he wants to hear. As though their “product” were some defective widget that could simply be retooled to make management happy.

I’m reminded of Lee Iacoca, one of Welch’s peers, who lamented the disastrous arc of this country, in his book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?. A leader has to be grounded in reality, not in some fantasy space, and the WSJ – as the country’s preeminent business paper – by insisting on fantasy instead of reality, has much to answer for the appalling lack of leadership in America.