I kind of get it why Gore doesn’t want to enter the Presidential race, but I can’t exactly say why. I’ll bet he can’t either. Just because people want you to do something, doesn’t mean you should do it. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it either. And just because there’s a need for you to do something, doesn’t mean you should fill it. It has something to do with what the philosopher Hegel called desire. Hegel said that what human beings desire is the desire of others. Paraphrased, the way we know something is important to us is by a feeling, a felt desire. And the way we know that we are important, is to see that we are the object of the desire of another [others]. And things go best if what is desired is what we really are.

Long ago and far away, in 1970, during Al Gore Senior’s losing campaign in Tennessee, the Al Gores came to town. Al Senior was a genuine character with a visible twinkle in his eye – one of those charismatic old Southern politicians who also did the right thing when it was past time for the segregated South to change. Al Junior was cut from a different cloth – formal, stiff, not much natural rhythm [unlike wife Tipper, who had a sparkle all her own]. The young Al Gore struck me as almost "corny" with his formality and carefully chosen words.

I’d bet that the oft heard comment that he was raised to be President was true – the heady son of a soulful politician. And he did it. He went on to serve four terms in the House of Representatives; he won back his father’s Senate seat twice; he served two terms as Vice President. He even got himself elected President in 2000, but he didn’t serve. He spent 27 years in government doing what he was raised to do. It would hardly be over-psychologizing to say that he was the apple of his father’s eye, even after "the silver fox of Cathage," Al Gore Senior, was long gone.

What happened in 2000 finally freed him from being what he was raised to be, and allowed him to think about what he desired to be – where his passion lay. That’s what he said in his movie and I believed him. We now love him for it, like Sunday night at the Oscars. But what we love him for is for his passion. I think we’ve witnessed Al Gore’s growing up, his discovery of his own personal truth. He’s no longer just the twinkle in his father’s eye. We’ve all forgotten about his father. He’s become the twinkle in our eyes.

Says Richard Cohen in today’s Washington Post:

The last time I saw Gore was at a screening of his now-acclaimed movie, "An Inconvenient Truth." I wrote at the time that, on paper at least, he was the near-perfect Democratic presidential candidate — right on the war, above all.This observation, hardly original with me, is being echoed elsewhere, and it would be impossible for Gore to ignore it. Jimmy Carter said Sunday on ABC’s "This Week" that he thought Gore ought to run and had told Gore so insistently. "He almost told me the last time I called, ‘Don’t call me anymore,’ " Carter said. What Gore told me was something similar: "I think there are other ways to serve."

We’ll see. After all, Gore — the son of a senator himself — was raised for the presidency. But for the moment at least, he is showing all the irritating signs of a man at peace with himself. He abandoned Washington for Nashville. He has made a bundle in his investments, and he has set out to show that there is life after a failed candidacy, a purposeful life in which a man can do some good. His movie and his speeches are — to paraphrase what Clausewitz said about war — a continuation of politics by other means. He cannot make war but he can still make a difference.

I know — and so does Gore — that all this will change if he enters the race. Maybe that ol’ devil of uncertainty will come creeping out of his skin, and maybe he will become shrill, and maybe he will somehow throw his voice so that it seems to be coming from outside his body. But the woman I love tells me that life is a series of little lives, and no one has proved the truth of this better than Gore. With an Oscar in his fist and triumph on his face, Al Gore is a man you can tell your kid about. That, maybe, is even better than being president.

And I don’t think that he’s hiding from being teased for being what he is – formal, careful, unsure. I think he’s located his soul, the place where he’s free from all of that. When a guy finally finds his own road, he just needs to see where it goes.

Godspeed…

Smearing Like It’s 2003
By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Even as jurors pondered whether Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff should be convicted for lying about what the Bush administration did to smear one of its critics, there was Cheney accusing another adversary of doing the work of the terrorists.

The fabricate-and-smear cycle illustrated so dramatically during the case of I. Lewis "Scooter” Libby explains why President Bush is failing to rally support for the latest iteration of his Iraq policy. The administration’s willingness at the outset to say anything, no matter how questionable, to justify the war has destroyed its credibility. Its habit of attacking those who expressed misgivings has destroyed any goodwill it might have enjoyed. Bush and Cheney have lost the benefit of the doubt.

…

The evidence presented at the Libby trial has demonstrated how worried Cheney was that this scheme could unravel. Thanks to Patrick Fitzgerald, the painstaking prosecutor, we know that Cheney was beside himself over former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed article undercutting the administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein had sought nuclear materials in Niger.

Whatever the jury decides, Fitzgerald has amply demonstrated that Cheney directed Libby to destroy Wilson’s credibility, partly by leaking that his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative who had suggested Wilson was well qualified to investigate the claims in Niger. For Libby, Fitzgerald said in closing his case, Valerie Wilson "wasn’t a person. She was an argument, a fact to use against Joe Wilson."

Libby-Cheney apologists have argued over and over that Cheney had a right to be angry because Wilson said that Cheney had sent him to Niger. But Wilson said no such thing. In his New York Times piece, Wilson wrote only that he had been "informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office had questions about a particular intelligence report.” That was true.

The attack apparatus has now turned on Fitzgerald, whose record is that of a thoroughly nonpartisan prosecutor. Fitzgerald’s perjury rap against Libby, Cheney allies say, is a cheap attempt to criminalize politics.

…

Whatever price Scooter Libby pays, the country is already paying for the divisive practices of a crowd that wanted to go to war in Iraq in the very worst way — and did exactly that. As a result, we confront the mess in Baghdad and the continued threat of terrorism as an angry, polarized nation.

Yesterday, I was writing something about one of the exhibits in the Libby Trial – something that made it clear that Condaleeza Rice was being sent out to the talk shows with carefully contrived spin. The day in question was the eve of P-Day – the day Valerie Plame was "outed." Dr. Rice was on Face the Nation and The Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer spinning a yarn about the "sixteen Words." It was, in retrospect, ludicrous – the things she said. But the next day, Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney checked Rice’s statements off in their morning session while waiting for Novak’s zinger to be published Rice’s spin spun. It’s been like that for six years – coordinated propoganda speeches, orchestrated from the White House or the Office of the Vice President.

Yesterday also, Condaleeza Rice was on Fox News Sunday, with some worn out Talking Point about Bush supporting our troops in Iraq by defying ignoring Congress. It was interesting to read her four year old version and her modern version at the same time. She’s facile at ignoring questions by saying the same things over and over. But it’s not working so well as it has in the past. And Cheney’s off globe trotting, spewing the same lines as in 2003, but not so many people are listening. The articles in the papers are more like the one above, or analyses of why he got sent overseas during the Libby Trial – to get him out of Dodge.

I don’t know if the tide is turning as much as it seems to me. I’m too biased at this point to even judge. But it has turned a lot. America is waking up from a very deep sleep, none too soon. The questions on the table right now are only how do we dig our way out of this collassal mess, and can we do it sooner than the six hundred plus days that these pretenders have to be in power. It doesn’t seem like we’ve got that long to me. Dionne says it well, "the country is already paying for the divisive practices of a crowd that wanted to go to war in Iraq in the very worst way — and did exactly that. As a result, we confront the mess in Baghdad and the continued threat of terrorism as an angry, polarized nation."

But I, for one, am tired of fighting with our own government. I’m tired of whining day after day about this Administration, and I’m afraid to stop. I’m very tired of listening to Condaleeza Rice speak other people’s word for them. I’m tired of Cheney speaking, period.

A guilty verdict tomorrow would go a long way towards keeping this ball rolling. As right as Dionne is about what this trial has shown us, it’s unfortunately the verdict that’s going to spread the information to where it needs to be spread…

UPDATE: Looks like Condi kind of got to Olberman too. He’s on fire again…

UPDATE: One good reason to keep on whining… 

I have to say that worrying about Jane Hamsher’s phone and the WiFi in the Media room at the Libby Trial was a lot more satisfying than watching the news tonight. Cheney went to Pakistan today to chide Pakistan for not being tough enough on al Qaeda! Pakistan? We’ve been ignoring al Qaeda for four years [that’s right – in three weeks it will be four years] off chasing our tails in Iraq, and Cheney’s bitching at Pakistan? Bin Laden was last seen when he escaped in Tora Bora. It’s on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now, he’s apparently setting up training camps in Waziristan. Waziristan is on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The camp area is maybe a hundred or so miles from his old camps in Afghanistan.

That we’re fighting an absurd, unprovoked war in Iraq is one thing. That we’re fighting an absurd, unprovoked war in Iraq when we have another actual real war to fight with al Qaeda is another. That we’re fighting an absurd, counterproductive unprovoked war in Iraq when we have another actual real war to fight with al Qaeda in Wazirstan, and we’re trying to get Pakistan to fight it for us is beyond unimaginable. There are a mounting number of reasons to send the Bush Administrationin to time-out, but practically speaking, this is the biggest. They can’t read maps!

LIBBY TRIAL:
Bush Admin Targeted Wilson’s Wife Long Before Wilson’s Article Published

Trial testimony and evidence show the Administration already gunning for Plame/Wilson well prior to her husband’s editorial. The prosecution isn’t allowed to say so, very directly, because it would be too prejudicial, but here is the timeline of the pre-op-ed activities:

• May 29, 2003 – Libby calls Marc Grossman, then an Under Secretary in the State Department, asking how and why Joe Wilson was sent to Niger about uranium.
• “late May and early June, 2003” according to Grossman’s testimony — Grossman gives oral interim reports to Libby that Wilson was the ambassador who went to Niger (mentioned but not named in a May 6 NYTimes piece by Nicholas Kristof, “Missing in Action: Truth”).
• June 9, 2003, according to Grossman’s testimony – Grossman had a conversation with Wilson, who was “upset” about Condoleezza Rice’s claim the day before on Meet the Press that the White House was unaware of doubts about the Niger uranium story. (In his book, Wilson says this conversation “elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself”; he got in touch with the NYTimes the same day. p.332.)
• June 9, 2003 – classified documents from CIA are faxed to the Office of the Vice President to Libby and colleague John Hannah, mentioning the Wilson trip but not naming Wilson.
• June 10, 2003 – a classified State Department memo written by State’s Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR) gives Grossman the background on Wilson’s Niger trip, refers explicitly to Valerie Wilson as Wilson’s wife and “a CIA WMD manager.” The memo also strongly debunks the Niger uranium story.
• June 11, 2003 – Robert L. Grenier, then “Iraq mission manager” and “point person for Iraq,” receives a phone call from Libby, then is summoned from a meeting with the CIA Director to talk with Libby about Wilson; tells Libby Wilson’s wife is in CIA. (Grenier is no longer with the CIA.)
• June 11/12, 2003 – Marc Grossman has a “30-second discussion” about Mrs. Wilson with Libby, according to Grossman’s testimony.
• June 12, 2003 – Libby is informed by Cheney in a phone call that Wilson’s wife is in CIA (handwritten note: “CP: his wife works in that div”).
• June 12, 2003 – David Addington, Cheney’s government lawyer, receives the same notes from Libby’s office mentioning Wilson’s wife in CP (typed copy).
• June 13, 2003 – Richard L. Armitage tells Bob Woodward, on tape, that Mrs. Wilson works for CIA, suggests that Mrs. Wilson sent Wilson on the Niger trip.
• June 14, 2003 – CIA daily briefer Craig Schmall briefing of Libby at Libby’s home notes question about Wilson (“ex-amb”) and the Niger trip, notes Wilson and Valerie Wilson by name.
• June 23, 2003 – Libby has a discussion with Judith Miller, mentions Wilson’s wife at “bureau” (CIA). (Miller had returned to the U.S. on June 8.)
• July 6, 2003 – Joseph Wilson’s op-ed criticizing the Niger story finally appears in the NYTimes.

Additionally, on June 20, June 23 and June 27, according to a cautious statement by Bob Woodward in the WashPost, Woodward met with another official, spoke with Libby on the phone and then met with Libby, bringing items including “yellowcake” and “Joe Wilson’s wife” with him.

So why were there all these colloquies in the administration, about Wilson’s wife, before Wilson’s article even came out?

It feels like an illness, obsessing over the details of the Plame Case [now known as the Libby Trial]. But there are lot’s of us who have it. I don’t think I’m going to take Prozac to get over it though. It needs to be thought about and the "jury’s still out."

Margie Burns’ post on the BradBlog has a clean timeline of the pre-Wilson sheenanigans. She questions the "why?" of it all. I’m not sure there’s anything hidden about "why?" As soon as Wilson started making noises, the OVP was all over it. And, to me, that’s the whole point of this story. For unclear reasons, they thought think they can get away with this War in Iraq.

For that to happen, the war would have to end quickly, before we got really upset about the absence of nuclear bomb plants or vats of anthrax. They would have to overcome the revelation that the pre-war intelligence was a hoax when we began to figure it out. They would have to repeatedly fuel the myth that this was part of a war on terrorists, specifically al Qaeda, and that it was our response to the 911 attack on New York City. In June and July of 2003, they were still in a position to bring it off, or so they thought.

First, there were no weapons of mass destruction. Damn! We were counting on them. Then people began to question the prewar reporting of their conduits like Judith Miller of the New York Times. Damn! We’re not ready for that yet. Then, the Iraqi expatriots they were counting on started smelling like a fishmarket. Damn! We were counting on them too. But then, along came this ex-Ambassador named Wilson, asking questions, getting nosey, getting noisy. Damn! We’ve got to get that guy.

And, they actually brought it off. They’re still in the White House. We’re still in the Iraq War. Al Qaeda is still in the mountains of somewhere-i-stan. But thanks to the persistence of an honorable Federal Prosecutor, we’ve at least made it into a courtroom with a piece of this sordid puzzle. I don’t mean to demean Margie’s question, I just think we know the answer. The OVP knew what it had done, and knew the consequences of it reaching the light of day. Cheney still knows. But back then, he was powerful enough to do anything he wanted to do – or so he thought.

So, I’ll keep obsessing about the details along with the rest of the people who see this as the only way to get some leverage on this frozen bolt to turn it some more. We don’t need Prozac, we need elbow-grease…

The day began with a big bruhaha. A juror, a seventy year old Art Curator [the one who didn’t wear a Valentine’s Day tee-shirt last week] either exposed herself to or was exposed to information about the case over the weekend. She was excused [been there, done that, no tee-shirt]. The issue became plodding ahead with eleven jurors or bringing in an Alternate. Wells was happy with the decision to plod ahead. Fizgerald was not.

Then Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake was reconnected with the blue/grey glasses she lost earlier, but subsequently lost her phone and wallet in the bathroom. That was right before the power went out in the whole building. The jury deliberated by window-light. The Media watched as the UPS lights started to blink on the WiFi and their lap-top batteries began to drain. But then the power came back on around 4:00 PM and order was restored to the kingdom. So then, someone turned in Jane Hamsher’s wallet and phone to the lost and found. All’s well that ends well.

Oh yeah. Zipola from the jury… 

I remember my own encounter with this idea from a long time ago – the years between 1967 and 1971. In 1967, I was an Intern. We all expected to be drafted, and if there were people excited about that, I never met them. I don’t recall much discussion about the War itself, or even much attention to politics. That’s just not what we talked about. We talked about medical things and had really intense parties to let off steam.

But my wife and I talked about it some. I was deferred through my residency, so I didn’t have to go into the military in 1968 and off to Viet Nam like all of my friends. As the years passed, my wife and I became increasingly opposed to that war. I had a hell of a time sorting that out. I felt morally opposed to the war, but I also felt "patriotic," if that can be a feeling. My father grew up an immigrant with parents who had come to Ellis Island to escape starvation. During World War II, he was a chemist in a TNT Plant. I think I grew up thinking he was a draft dodger, but that wasn’t true. That’s where he was assigned. All my friend’s fathers had been "over there" and I was kind of jealous. The idea of not fighting in Viet Nam for the country that opened its arms to my grandparents was abhorrant. My wife said that if I didn’t want to go, we should go to Canada. I said that I was not going to be run out of My country. If they wanted me to serve my country in prison, that’s what I’d do. We were young then.

As things turned out, I was not assigned to Southeast Asia, and spent a delightful three years on an Air Force base in England, a pretend Major occasionally arguing with career Captains about the war. Like my father, I was never confronted with combat through no effort of my own. I came to think of my dilemma as lose-lose-lose. I served, but not really. I think by the time push came to shove, if I’d been assigned to Viet Nam I probably would have gone – but I’ll never know. Even that wouldn’t have solved my struggle. At the time, I was an Internist, a non-combatant. I would have used that to rationalize my objections to the war, "I went, but I didn’t fight." What I now know is that my internal conflict was unresolvable. There were three choices. I could feel like a coward who ran. I could feel like a coward who betrayed my principles. Or I could feel what I do feel – like a coward who didn’t face the dragon and make an active decision. I have always wished that I’d been alive to have this dilemma about World War II and Nazi Germany – My country, right…"

I included Chesterton’s quote, "My country, right or wrong is like saying, my mother, drunk or sober," for a reason. Sticking with a drunk mother is now called "enabling." It’s seen as supporting the illness instead of a cure. And his analogy is a good one. And while I can still feel the power of Decatur’s original quote, Senator Schurz wins the day for me with, "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right." I remember those years, my late twenties, when some version of this conflict was on the side of my mind every single day, even if I didn’t talk about it. Those were the years when I was most capable of addressing this question. Those were the years that shaped the political life I’ve lived. Even though I quip, "We were young then," I know that it was people like me and my wife then who should have decided about that war. And I think it’s true now. What brings these musings up? Watching this video and remembering what the looks on the faces of these soldiers felt like. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing my own past.

Rice decries congressional efforts to restrict war

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke out Sunday against efforts in Congress to limit the role of U.S. forces in Iraq, saying President Bush would not allow himself to be constrained by such a "micromanagement of military affairs."

Asked whether Bush would abide by a binding resolution, now being drafted by Democratic leaders, that would include the start of troop withdrawal from Iraq, Rice told "Fox News Sunday" that such a proposal would go against his efforts to support the "flexibility of our commanders to do what they think they need to do on the ground."

"I can’t imagine a circumstance in which it’s a good thing that their flexibility is constrained by people sitting here in Washington, sitting in the Congress, trying to micromanage this war," Rice said. "I just don’t think it’s a good thing."

Says Kangro X of dailyKOS:

Bush to defy troop withdrawal legislation

Of course, Democrats pushed back to some extent, too:

But Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said lawmakers would step up efforts to force Bush to change course. "The president needs a check and a balance," said Levin, D-Mich.

I agree. He needs a check and balance. And while I applaud Levin’s efforts, I do so only because I know they kick the can further down the road we all know we’re bound to travel here. Senator Levin says the president needs a check and balance, but I don’t think he’s hearing Secretary Rice. The president will defy your legislation.

The president will defy your legislation.

Now, that doesn’t mean this isn’t something Levin and his colleagues aren’t going to want to see for themselves. But time’s a-wastin’. Let’s get this show on the road, already. We know what’s going to happen, and we know what your choices are going to be at the end of the road: roll over, or impeach.

How do we know? Well, Rice says so. On what basis? Well, to the extent that she needs a basis for a statement like that, she’s probably pointing to the fact that this "administration" believes Congress is literally powerless to stop the war.

Says 1boringoldman, "Bring it on! The sooner the better"…

what some soldiers say
those soldiers saying it
supporting the soldiers

National House of Waffles

More and more, with Bush administration pronouncements about the Iraq war, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

W. built his political identity on the idea that he was not Bill Clinton. He didn’t parse words or prevaricate. He was the Texas straight shooter.

So why is he now presiding over a completely Clintonian environment, turning the White House into a Waffle House, where truth is camouflaged by word games and responsibility is obscured by shell games?

The president and Condi Rice can shuffle the shells and blame George Tenet, but it smells of mendacity.

Mr. Clinton indulged in casuistry to hide personal weakness. The Bush team indulges in casuistry to perpetuate its image of political steel.

Dissembling over peccadillos is pathetic. Dissembling over pre-emptive strikes is pathological, given over 200 Americans dead and 1,000 wounded in Iraq, and untold numbers of dead Iraqis. Our troops are in "a shooting gallery," as Teddy Kennedy put it, and our spy agencies warn that we are on the cusp of a new round of attacks by Saddam snipers.

Why does it always come to this in Washington? The people who ascend to power on the promise of doing things differently end up making the same unforced errors their predecessors did. Out of office, the Bush crowd mocked the Clinton propensity for stonewalling; in office, they have stonewalled the 9/11 families on the events that preceded the attacks, and the American public on how — and why — they maneuvered the nation into the Iraqi war.

Their defensive crouch and obsession with secrecy are positively Nixonian. (But instead of John Dean and an aggressive media, they have Howard Dean and a cowed media.)

In a hole, the president should have done some plain speaking: "The information I gave you in the State of the Union about Iraq seeking nuclear material from Africa has been revealed to be false. I’m deeply angry and I’m going to get to the bottom of this."

But of course he couldn’t say that. He would be like Sheriff Bart in "Blazing Saddles," holding the gun to his own head and saying, "Nobody move or POTUS gets it." The Bush administration has known all along that the evidence of the imminent threat of Saddam’s weapons and the Al Qaeda connections were pumped up. They were manning the air hose.

Mr. Tenet, in his continuing effort to ingratiate himself to his bosses, agreed to take the fall, trying to minimize a year’s worth of war-causing warping of intelligence as a slip of the keyboard. "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," he said, in 15 words that were clearly written for him on behalf of the president. But it won’t fly.

^{It was Ms. Rice’s responsibility to vet the intelligence facts in the president’s speech and take note of the red alert the tentative Tenet was raising. Colin Powell did when he set up camp at the C.I.A. for a week before his U.N. speech, double-checking what he considered unsubstantiated charges that the Cheney chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and other hawks wanted to sluice into his talk.}

When the president attributed the information about Iraq trying to get Niger yellowcake to British intelligence, it was a Clintonian bit of flim-flam. Americans did not know what top Bush officials knew: that this ”evidence” could not be attributed to American intelligence because the C.I.A. had already debunked it.

Ms. Rice did not throw out the line, even though the C.I.A. had warned her office that it was sketchy. Clearly, a higher power wanted it in.

And that had to be Dick Cheney’s office. Joseph Wilson, former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, said he was asked to go to Niger to answer some questions from the vice president’s office about that episode and reported back that it was highly doubtful.

Those notes seem to be a review of the spin already spun. Just checking to be sure all of the damage control was getting out there. But then there are [at least] two more things. My guess is that they are an Action Plan for future-spin – issues not yet taken on in public statements.

I’ve reproduced Marcy’s post here because I think really she’s onto something big, and there are lots of implications:

•  These notes, written probably before Novak’s article came out, or shortly thereafter, imply a minute to minute knowledge of their well-placed leaks in the previous week [leak week]. They knew Pincus had been called [7/12, by Fleischer] and they knew Novak’s article was coming [7/14, faxed on 7/11 by Hohlt].
• The OVP wasn’t busy with the  War in Iraq as Libby claims in his faulty memory defense. They were busy with their own war using the Press to control our opinions. Everything in here is about the Press and masterminding it: Dowd’s piece [NYT], Wilson’s oped [NYT], Pincus [Washington Post], Novak [Chicago Sun], Fleischer [Press secretary] , Sanger [NYT], Rice’s interviews and T.V. appearances [CNN][CBS], Tenet’s statement [to the Press]. They’re obsessed with the Press…
• The epicenter for the Plame Leak and other responses to Joseph Wilson’s accusations was the OVP with Lone Ranger Cheney leading the show supported by his trusted Tonto Libby. Rice and Tenet were an intimate part of their response – Fleischer too. Reporters were being played as [probably unwitting] pieces in the operation.
• We’ve all called George W. Bush a puppet at one point or another. But notice that there’s no mention of him with the SOTU, or the response to Wilson. He’s a figurehead. It’s hard to imagine FDR or JFK being so completely out of the game as George W. Bush is in this business. Decider? hah!

I hope the jurors are looking at this piece of evidence and I thank emptywheel for calling it to our attention – better than a Sudoku…

General Plays Down Value Of Capturing Bin Laden

The Army’s highest-ranking officer said Friday that he was unsure whether the U.S. military would capture or kill Osama bin Laden, adding, "I don’t know that it’s all that important, frankly."

"So we get him, and then what?" asked Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the outgoing Army chief of staff, at a Rotary Club of Fort Worth luncheon. "There’s a temporary feeling of goodness, but in the long run, we may make him bigger than he is today.

"He’s hiding, and he knows we’re looking for him. We know he’s not particularly effective. I’m not sure there’s that great of a return" on capturing or killing bin Laden.

Schoomaker pointed to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the killings of his sons, Uday and Qusay, and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as evidence that the capture or death of al-Qaeda’s leader would have little effect on threats to the United States.

Days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President Bush said he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive," and then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, "It is not enough to get one individual, although we’ll start with that one individual."

Bush reaffirmed the goal last September in a prime-time speech, warning bin Laden: "No matter how long it takes, America will find you, and we will bring you to justice."

But Schoomaker’s remarks echoed comments last year by Vice President Cheney, who seemed to play down the value of capturing or killing bin Laden days before the Bush speech. "He’s not the only source of the problem, obviously. . . . If you killed him tomorrow, you’d still have a problem with al-Qaeda," the vice president said.

"If you are going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don’t get to just do the fun part of that, that says, well we’re going to get out and appeal to your constituents on that basis. You have to be accountable for the results…

"The point I made and I’ll make it again is that al-Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will. … That if they can kill enough Americans or cause enough havoc, create enough chaos in Iraq, then we’ll quit and go home… If we adopt the Pelosi policy, that then we will validate the strategy of al-Qaeda. I said it and I meant it."

There’s a huge paradox in what Cheney is saying. Huge. Getting Bin Laden, doesn’t matter. Killing Hussein and his government did matter. Allowing the al Qaeda terrorists to breed in wherever-they-are doesn’t matter. Staying in Iraq does matter. Decrying the barbarism of al Qaeda does matter. Becoming barbarians ourselves in Iraq doesn’t matter. Not giving in to al Qaeda’s strategy does matter while al Qaeda itself doesn’t matter. It makes absolutely no sense…

It has to be all about staying in Iraq. It has to be all about being in on the development of the Iraq Oil Fields. His logic ebbs and flows in ways that make absolutely no sense, unless the continued presence of Americans in Iraq is in the equation. It’s why we went – to occupy Iraq and develop it’s oil. It’s the Mission. We’re not coming home, at least not while Dick Cheney is around. What the Administration says makes zero sense without the equation:

Foreign Policy = Americans_Iraq + Iraq_Oil