Spinning The NIE

I'm stuck in end-of-semester hell right now, but this is just a quick post to tell you guys not to miss the right-wing wackiness following on the disclosure of the recent NIE. It really is astonishing what you can get yourself to believe if your partisan convictions are strong enough. Just poke around a bit--Instapundit, for example, has been pretty hilarious. By which I mean 'kinda scary.'

Most of the posts take the form of red herrings attempting to distract the reader from the president's dishonesty by claiming, e.g., that this just shows the side benefits we're reaping from the invasion of Iraq. Hew Hewitt even praises the "unpredictability" of our decisions to use military force.

I'd write more on this and link, but just too swamped right now. But check it out--it's easily findable.

What's astonishing to me is that there's not more of an uproar given that this seems to be exactly what happened in Iraq all over again--inexcusable distortions of the evidence in essence constituting outright lies. The president has one set of facts in front of him, but he spins them in a bellicose direction in order to fit his preconceived views.

Seriously: something needs to be done about this. It's time to say no mas in unequivocal terms. Even the most minimal respect for our principles demands it.