Yipes. is not just disagreeing with Bill, he’s Fisking him (in his own words) To be fair, Bill did start it.
‘Twould be cowardly to just link and not comment on this one, I think. I’d say Stephen wins on points; Bill is being a bit too harsh on the Bush administration, in my view (with the exception of pounding on them for pandering to the House of Saud), and his attempt to put VodkaGuy into a little box was bad form.
As I was describing to a friend the other day, the problem is this: if we have time, then the Bush strategy appears to be working brilliantly. We will eventually go to war; we will win, and we will have done so with maximal international support (which, as I’ve written, I don’t care a rat’s ass about for moral reasons, but I do find useful for cynical, pragmatic reasons).
The problem is, there’s a possibility that this extra time being given to Saddam is the time that will make a difference in his ability to strike us with chemical, biological, or yes, even nuclear weapons.
And I just don’t know if that’s the case or not; and neither does anybody else outside the intelligence community (or in it, probably). And bottom line is, that’s the only piece of information that really matters in the faster-or-slower debate… more’s the pity we don’t have it…
Update: And Bill has a reply…