Tar fans and feather aficionados have had a good week, what with the race to Destroy Paul O’Neill. Even O’Neill himself is getting involved, reasoning that if he bloodies himself enough maybe other people won’t want to hit him anymore. My particular favorite was the “senior official” who said, “We didn’t listen to [O’Neill’s] wacky ideas when he was in the White House, why should we start listening to him now?” Ha! The man’s “wacky!” Never liked ‘im! We were trying to get a recently retired right-fielder to run the Treasury, and this guy showed up! Hell, he wasn’t even AT all the meetings where we talked about how we definitely weren’t talking about invading Iraq!

As for the veracity of O’Neill’s account of the pre-9/11 build-up to war, well… General Hugh Shelton was there, and he “saw nothing that would lead me to believe that we were any closer to attacking Iraq than we had been during the previous administration.” See? Or ask Donald Rumsfeld, who said that the idea that Bush “came into office with a predisposition to invade Iraq, I think, is a total misunderstanding of the situation.”

Until galvanized by 9/11 into attacking countries that had nothing to do with 9/11, the Bush administration saw no reason to do anything new or different with Saddam Hussein.

Well, that about wraps that up, huh? Just Crazy Paul bein’ a big ol’ goofball again. Let’s hit him with a two-by-four a few more times, nail ‘im to that tree so he doesn’t hurt himself, and go home….

…oh, wait a minute. In a story about Condoleeza Rice filed a few days before the Bush inauguration, Nick Simeone reported, “But in an address outlining some of the incoming administration’s views on foreign policy, the first woman ever tapped to become the nation’s top national security expert hinted that the new administration may be considering other options beyond sanctions to deal with a leader whom she describes as still a tremendous threat.” Condi herself said, “At some point in time, it will be clear what else may be in store…”

Well, that’s a little creepy. But hey, she could’ve meant all kinds of other things other than sanctions that could be done to Iraq, right? Things like… um, well, you know, other things…

And then there was a certain conversation Condoleeza had with Wolf Blitzer in July of 2001. That has some pretty angry-sounding stuff in it. Stuff like, “Rice said the Bush administration would look at the use of military force [against Saddam] ‘in a more resolute manner, and not just a manner of tit-for-tat with him every day.’”

Hmm. Now, there are some interpretations of the above that might indicate that the administration was thinking about invading Iraq from the start, some interpretations that might call into question Rumsfeld’s or Shelton’s statements, but -

Hey, look over there! It’s Crazy Paul! He’s nuts! A nutsy, backstabbin’ traitor, a guy we never liked anyway, a loose cannon! What’s this? He’s releasing secret documents!? Possibly! That’s your headline! He needs a good ass-whoopin’! Get him! Get him!