Armchair psychology

Another right-winger who is due to pony up regarding their predictions that we would certainly find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is Charles "Calvinball" Krauthammer, who back in April said this:

Hans Blix had five months to find weapons. He found nothing. We've had five weeks. Come back to me in five months. If we haven't found any, we will have a credibility problem. I don't have any doubt that we will locate them. I think it takes time. They've obviously been deeply hidden, and it will require that we get the information from people who know where they are.

Well, it's been five months, and then some. And Charles? You have a credibility problem.

In his most recent Washington Post column, Krauthammer trots out the "we didn't invade Iraq just because of WMDs" excuse that's proven popular with other Bush apologists like Jeff Jacoby and Jonah Goldberg:

Scientists were bluffing Hussein. Hussein was bluffing the world. The Iraqis were all bluffing each other. Special Republican Guard commanders had no WMDs, but they told investigators that they were sure other guard units did. It was this internal disinformation that the whole outside world missed.

Actually, it was disinformation that was fed by the Chalabi-led Iraqi National Congress faction which the Bush administration blindly seized upon, and whose work was specifically repudiated by the CIA -- but the Bushites rejected that assessment.

Congress needs to find out why, with all our resources, we had not a clue that this was going on. But Kay makes clear that President Bush was relying on what the intelligence agencies were telling him. Kay contradicts the reckless Democratic charges that Bush cooked the books. "All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on WMD," says Kay. "Everyone believed that [Iraq] had WMD."

Actually, not everyone was so sure. Remember all those "America hating" skeptics who were dubious about their existence, after Blix was unable to find them? Of course, they had no credibility in the eyes of people like Dick Cheney, who went on national TV and told us he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Iraq had WMDs.

Of course, to guys like Krauthammer and Jacoby, it just doesn't matter anyway, because with or without WMDs, we were justified in going to war with Iraq. Nevermind, of course, that without the WMD "imminent threat" justification, such an invasion is a clear violation of international law. Nevermind that those "humanitarian" reasons, and the "need to bring peace to the Middle East," were not the reasons given to the American public justifying the invasion. Americans instead were told, again and again, that Iraq was a serious threat to us all.

Jesse at Pandagon puts it succinctly:

Is it just me, or does this completely fucking ignore the point that Bush pushed forth intelligence that said Iraq was currently developing a nuclear program based on dubious and debunked information? Everyone believed that Iraq had some WMD - but Bush was the only person saying that he had concrete evidence they were producing more, and that it would be used either directly by Hussein, or indirectly through the terrorist ties Hussein didn't have?

Anyone this stupid needs to go in for some clinical evaluation.

Actually, given Krauthammer's predilection for debasing his profession with bogus psychoanalysis, it might be easiest to forgo the armchair psychology and cut to the point:

Krauthammer is not merely incapable of admitting when he is wrong, he is a hypocritical liar and a disgrace to journalism.