I agree with Mona Charen and others, that to blame President Bush for intentionally misleading the public about WMDs in Iraq makes no sense.
But perhaps more scary is the president’s naivete about the competence of George Tenet and the CIA. The Clinton appointee’s record of failure is extensive, and the well-respected former chairman of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, Richard Shelby (former Democrat, now Republican), said in 2002, “There have been more massive failures of intelligence on his watch as director of CIA than any other director in the history of the agency. Yet he’s still there. It’s inexplicable to me.”
There is a lot to admire about President Bush’s goals in defending the country, but his judgment here, and in many other policy areas, is a cause for serious concern.
