Get 'em, tiger

Diane Sawyer, of all people, gets kudos for pressing George Jr. on the claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as even the New York Times has noticed.

At one point in the interview, a clearly defensive Bush was reduced to saying "So what's the difference?" between wanting to have WMDs and actually having them. I guess a lot of beggars are on horseback now.

Parsing Bush's convoluted, shifting arguments is no easy task, because

Mr. Bush has always been careful to have multiple reasons ready for his major policy proposals, and his administration has deployed them deftly to adapt to changing circumstances.

The interview was no exception. He used two justifications for invading Iraq - the threat of weapons and the evilness of Saddam - and it seemed every time Sawyer asked about one, he answered with the other. For example, at one point

"And if he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction?" Ms. Sawyer asked the president, according to a transcript provided by ABC.

"Diane, you can keep asking the question," Mr. Bush replied. "I'm telling you - I made the right decision for America because Saddam Hussein used weapons of mass destruction, invaded Kuwait. But the fact that he is not there is, means America's a more secure country."

But, I wish he'd been asked, just where does that increased security lie? The assertion that overthrowing Saddam made the US more secure can be true if and only if Saddam's Iraq presented a present danger to the US. So what was that threat? Weapons "programs," offering the specter of a vaguely-defined threat arising at some unknown time in the future, won't cut it: Even if taken at face value, acting on that basis doesn't reduce the present threat, it leaves it the same. No, it would take weapons, actual weapons, to constitute such a threat, and those weapons are exactly what even David Kay, despite his very best spin, had to admit can't be found.

In any event, congratulations to Diane Sawyer for making Bush squirm, and especially for showing how easy it is to do if you actually press him on an issue.

LiberalOasis has a good deal more on the interview here.

Missed Opportunities Dept.: From the Times article:

Pressed to explain the president's remarks, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said Mr. Bush was not backing away from his assertions about Mr. Hussein's possession of banned weapons.

"We continue to believe that he had weapons of mass destruction programs and weapons of mass destruction," Mr. McClellan said on Wednesday.

Apparently no one tried the simple follow-up question "Had when?"