More progress?

Earlier, I wrote that I had noticed some hopeful signs that the public is cottoning on to the fact that BushCo had lied to them about the connection between 9/11 and Iraq. When people lie to you, it's a reasonable for you to be skeptical the next time they tell you a story. Well, I see another sign that there may be some hope for at least part of the MSM. This time it's a NY Times editorial -- yes, the same NY Times that gave Judith Miller the front page to hype the invasion of Iraq -- titled Wanted: Scarier Intelligence which warns us about getting burned again. It opens and closes with the following paragraphs and it's almost as if someone has learned a lesson. Can't you just hear GWB saying: "Fool me once... uh... fool me... uh... "

The last thing this country needs as it heads into this election season is another attempt to push the intelligence agencies to hype their conclusions about the threat from a Middle Eastern state.

That’s what happened in 2002, when the administration engineered a deeply flawed document on Iraq that reshaped intelligence to fit President Bush’s policy. And history appeared to be repeating itself this week, when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, released a garishly illustrated and luridly written document that is ostensibly dedicated to “helping the American people understand” that Iran’s fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States.

[...]

All in all, this is a chilling reminder of what happened when intelligence analysts told Vice President Dick Cheney they could not prove that Iraq was building a nuclear weapon or had ties with Al Qaeda. He kept asking if they really meant it — until the C.I.A. took the hint.

It’s obvious that Iran wants nuclear weapons, has lied about its program and views America as an enemy. We enthusiastically agree that the United States needs every scrap of intelligence it can get on Iran. But the reason American intelligence is not certain when Iran might have a nuclear bomb is because the situation is so murky — not because the agencies are too wimpy to tell the scary truth.

If the Republicans who control Congress really wanted a full-scale assessment on the state of Iran’s weapons programs, they would have asked for one, rather than producing this brochure.

The nation cannot afford to pay the price again for politicians’ bending intelligence or bullying the intelligence agencies to suit their ideology.