And one more way

People start making odd(er) excuses for you.

In this case, the New York City newspaper The Forward reported on Friday that Lawrence Wilkerson, who had been Colin Powell's chief of staff, told a conference on international humanitarian law earlier in the week that

a White House memo outlining the need for hundreds of thousands of troops for the Iraq invasion was kept from the president. ...

In July 2003, USA Today reported the existence of the NSC memo, which examined the level of troops in peacekeeping operations and concluded that some 500,000 troops would need to be deployed to Iraq. USA Today raised doubts as to whether the president saw the memo. However, Wilkerson's assertion seemed to take the matter a step further, suggesting that aides who supported the war intentionally kept the president in the dark.

Last month, Wilkerson charged Vice President "The Big" Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumplestiltskin with forming a "cabal" to hijack American foreign policy. This time, he fingered then-national security advisor Can'tbe Right or her deputy, Stephen Hadley, as the one who had blocked the memo, although he admitted he had no proof.

So what, are Bush's friends (Wilkerson says he voted for him twice) now resorting to the Ronald Reagan defense? "Others took care of things for him, the poor dear. So don't blame him!"