Atrios, and Bill Gallagher, and Kevin Drum, and John Nichols are all saying in one way or another how much grief the Bushistas could spare themselves if they only could find some way around the, in Nichols's words, "absolute inability on the part of Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and, above all, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to admit when they have failed."

I don't have much to add to this, except I wouldn't pin it so much on Rice .... Check Rumsfeld for instance, who -- even knowing how much praise, how much of a boost to his credibility, Clarke got out of a very simple act of contrition -- still was psychologically incapable of anything close to that act, even with Jim Lehrer handholding him through it:

MR. LEHRER: At these 9/11 hearings yesterday, as I reported in the news summary and everybody knows now, the counterterror – former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke said to the families of the 9/11 victims, quote, “your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. I failed you,” end quote. As secretary of defense, do you have any sense of failure concerning what happened on 9/11?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, I hate to separate myself as secretary of defense. Secretary – the Department of Defense, of course, is oriented to external threats. This was a domestic airplane that was operated by people who were in the United States against a United States target, which makes it a law enforcement – historically a law enforcement issue.


Amazing. And, of course, when it might have been our responsibility it was a law enforcement issue, but when there's a chance to go kill folks it's a war.