Keith Olbermann's Special Comment tonight spikes the outrage meter, but in the past two days since the NIE on Iran was released, not only have the lefty blogs been on fire, but many tv talking heads as well, and some only just finally or fairly recently putting down the kool-aid. Jack Cafferty, of course, but also Chris Matthews. Even Joe Scarborough has completely dropped all pretense of respect for Bush.
Nonetheless, the administration and the neocons and warmongers who enable them, from within the government, in the business community, or in the media, have no intention of using this info to calm down about Iran. They say, heck, they may even believe, that it validates their every act up to now, and supports whatever cockamamie scheme they come up with — oh, and it's the intelligence community's fault for screwing up and not finding the evidence to support our goals.
They are apparently even managing to twist arms in Europe, even today, with everything that's come out, so that sanctions can be imposed, and the Iran war machine can continue to accelerate without pause.
And, apparently they will continue to get away with it, maybe even finally starting the war with Iran that they want so badly, before the election next year, because the Democrats simply will not be an opposition party.
On a related, personal note, I want to remind myself that back in August, when the language from the administration re Iraq changed (as outlined in Keith's timeline), I noticed, and thought that something must have changed.
Oh, yeah, I did, take my word for it. But not only did I not document my perceptive insight at the tiem, I didn't have the confidence to act on what I noticed. I need to work on that. I'm always thinking that I'm not as smart or clever, or as knowledgeable as other bloggers (therefore, why bother, etc). That may be true, but I am very tuned in to subtleties of language, and have very good instincts about politics. I need to trust that more, and be more willing to state my perceptions and views, and risk being wrong (which will happen a lot).