Much Ado About Nothing?

A friend e-mailed me to ask why I hadn’t written anything about Paul O’Neill’s revelations that Duh-bya planned to take out Saddam militarily from day one.

Frankly, it’s because I’m still shocked that anyone thinks it’s news.

For crying out loud, I just watched the Frontline special “The War Behind Closed Doors” — which came out in February of last year. Even then, it was a matter of public record that the regime — or, more specifically, the neofascist component of it — was planning to invade Iraq.

O’Neill’s provided some additional documentation (which may have opened up a whole new can of worms), but the story’s been around for some time now. And it may show more of a determination on the part of little George himself to go ahead with his handlers’ schemes, but we already knew about those schemes. Hell, Wolfowitz wrote out the “preemptive strike” doctrine back during the first Bush administration; at the time, there was such an outcry that it was shelved until the right-wing cabal could find a more receptive — i.e., gullible — White House occupant.

Now, if this “controversy” helps a few more people wake up and realize they’ve been lied to ever since 9/11, then so much the better. After all, the wiser folks get, the better our chances of kicking this SOB — and his goons — out on the street. But I’m not gonna sit here and pretend this is anything we didn’t know already.

(So how’s that, Mike — got your anti-Bush fix?)