Richard Cohen visits the Clue Boutique: 

I would not go so far as to say that Bush wanted war from Day One in the White House, but there was plenty of evidence he had Saddam on his mind and in his sights from the very moment he got the news of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We have it from Richard Clarke, formerly the White House’s chief anti-terrorism official, that within a day of the attacks Bush was inquiring if Saddam might have had a hand in them. When told no — "But, Mr. President, al-Qaeda did this," Clarke told him — it became instantly clear that this was not the answer Bush wanted. "’Look into Iraq, Saddam,’ the president said testily," Clarke writes in his book, "Against All Enemies."

Well thank you for stating what’s been staringly obvious for, oh, about a couple years Richard.  Only…what’s missing from this picture…

If there was an “I’m sorry for being so stupid” embedded in Cohen’s column I didn’t spot it.

This is the man who, on Feb. 6, 2003, after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deeply-flawed testimony in New York, wrote: “The evidence he presented to the United Nations — some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail — had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise.”

In France right now they’re probably raising a toast now to the fact that Richard Cohen isn’t one of them.

Hey…Richard…  The next time some serious threat to world peace raises its head, and I mean a Real threat, not a let’s go start a splendid little war to prove we have bigger balls then everyone else and demagogue the democrats into political submission threat…and the U.S. needs to prove its case to the rest of the world…before you get that urge to tell the world it had better listen to us…Just Shut The Fuck Up!  k?