Footnote to both of the preceding

AP reported today that "The Big" Dick Cheney

accused critics of "corrupt and shameless" revisionism in suggesting the White House misled the nation in a rush to war, the latest salvo in an increasingly acrimonious debate over prewar intelligence. ...

"What is not legitimate - and I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible - is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president of the United States or any member of his administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence," Cheney said.

Corrupt. Shameless. Dishonest. Reprehensible. Have you noticed how the White House and its minions have reserved their harshest language for the suggestion that they manipulated intelligence?

That's because this is a sore spot, a vulnerable spot. Many people have been willing to put up with the war, with the deaths and the cost, because they cling to the belief that even if the Shrub team did the wrong thing (majorities now consistently say the war was a "mistake" and generally agree that it is "not worth the cost") they - the Bushites - thought they were doing good. Fracture that conviction and Bush and Co. are in really deep trouble. Back in June, the Zogby poll found that 42% of Americans would favor impeachment if it was shown that the White House lied about the war. By mid-October, an Ipsos poll found that had climbed to 50%.

And people are coming to realize that they were, indeed, bamboozled. Five major polls since the end of October have found majorities of the public agreeing the Bush administration "deliberately" or "intentionally" misled the country about Iraq before the war:

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll, 10/28-30
CBS News Poll, 10/30-11/1
ABC News/Washington Post Poll, 10/30-11/2
NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll, 11/4-7
Newsweek Poll, 11/10-11.

(The first two results are available here, the latter three here.)

Even the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 11/3-6, which used the harsher word "lied" rather than "misled," had a 43-41 plurality recognizing deception.

The Shrub gang sees their position evaporating. They are running scared. You can see it in their postures, you can hear it in their increasingly shrill, increasingly desperate, denunciations of war opponents.

Now, this does not mean Bush or Cheney will be impeached (although they should be) and it does not mean that everything will work out for the best in the foreseeable future. (See previous item.) They still have that base of fanatical believers who will tune into Sean Hannity in order to be told what to believe so they don't have to figure it out for themselves. Shrub and the Shrubberies are playing to that base and playing for time.

But they are running scared.