Pony up, boys

OK, it's time for all those warhawks who were busy breathing the neocons' exhaust back when were invading Iraq to come through on their promises, now that it's clear that those of us who questioned the existence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were right and they were wrong.

Especially Bill O'Reilly.

As OReilly-Sucks.com has observed, that straight-shootin', no-spin tabloid journalist had this to say back in March on Good Morning America:

"And I said on my program, if -- if -- the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again."

On April 22, on his Fox News program, he said this:

"If weapons of mass destruction aren't found,... I will have to apologize because I bought into it... All right, a month from today, we'll do this story again."

They didn't do the story again. Neither, for that matter, has an apology or denunciation of the Bush administration been forthcoming.

You can go here for the appropriate petition.

Meanwhile, via Atrios, and Soundbitten, we see that Jonah Goldberg went even further:

So here's the deal: George Bush -- who has rightly been much more reluctant than Tony Blair to toss the U.N. a bone when it comes to the potentially lucrative prospect of rebuilding Iraq -- should make it known that if Coalition forces find no Iraqi WMD while we're in there, we will defer to the U.N. on how to run postwar Iraq...I am still confident we will find plenty of such weapons -- Saddam didn't buy those chemical suits and atropine injectors because Glamour magazine says they're all the rage...

Funny thing about that. Now Goldberg has changed his tune. It's all the State Department's fault, you see. Sure. Though at least he seems willing to acknowledge that Bush was dishonest about how he sold the war:

If George Bush had talked before the war about bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq as eloquently as he did afterwards, he would be in a lot better shape politically and in the history books. Moreover, I bet he would have been a lot more honest.

Oh, wait:

I don't think the administration lied or deliberately exaggerated the WMD intelligence. I do think it deliberately exaggerated the WMD issue at the behest of the cookie pushers at State.

Just can't make up his mind, can he? But then, honesty has never been the strong suit of the Goldberg clan.

But excuses -- hey, they have those by the bushel.