LEGAL OR NOT, HERE WE CAME

We've been asking all along: When will American voters get it? When will they realize they were hoodwinked, bamboozled, suckered, tricked, fooled, misled into the war in Iraq? When will they recognize that their thuggish Nincompoop in Chief and his gang conspired with the British high command against their own and the world's best interests?

Yes, conspired. When you read about the secret British documents, which surfaced Saturday, showing that "frantic transatlantic discussions" between U.S. and British officials "were dictated by the imperative of making the war appear legal," how else would you describe those officials except as conspirators?

According to the documents, Peter Ricketts, political director at the [British] Foreign Office, described the US as "scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida", a link that was "so far frankly unconvincing." He told [British Foreign Secretary] Jack Straw: "We have to be convincing that the threat is so serious/imminent that it is worth sending our troops to die for. Regime change does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge match between Bush and Saddam."

Questions about the "legality" of the war were raised recently by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, which has done him no good with the conspirators. But Annan only said in public what officials at the highest level of the British government have been saying in secret. As The Guardian in London notes, the documents "have revealed the depth of official fears about the legality of the Iraq invasion -- and the disaster it presaged."

Will political niceties about whether the war was "legal" register with American voters? Or will such questions be trumped by the rhetoric of the Nincompoop's wishful thinking? He continues to argue that he should be elected for ridding the world of Saddam Hussein. But "regime change on its own was illegal," as the documents indicate, "and there was no justification in terms of 'self-defence against an imminent threat.'" This, the documents said, made "moving quickly to invade legally very difficult."

Consequently, the conspirators (chief among them, British Prime Minister Tony Blair) devised the strategy that "a war would be legal [based] on an interpretation that U.N. Security Council resolutions" had been violated by the Iraqi regime. That the regime had not complied with the resolutions is beyond doubt. But the emergence of that strategy was simply an excuse, or as the Guardian put it, a way "to wrongfoot Saddam."

Will John Kerry's speech yesterday about the war -- his "Harshest Critique Yet" -- help voters realize they've been hoodwinked?

The Washington Post reports that Kerry accused the Nincompoop "of deception in taking the country to war in Iraq and historic miscalculations since the invasion ended, arguing that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat and that his removal has turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground that has left the United States even less secure." The New York Times reports that he accused the Nincompoop of "stubborn incompetence" and "colossal failures of judgment." Kerry charged that our prevaricating gunslinger "misled, miscalculated and mismanaged every aspect of the war."

Kerry has said this before, but never with such force and coherence. If today's editorials and op-ed columns are right about his speech, maybe it will be part of a turning point. In the opinion of the Times, he "laid out a well-grounded, intellectually straightforward and powerful critique" and "finally seems to have found his voice on what ought to be the central issue of this year's election: the mismanaged war in Iraq and how to bring it to an acceptable conclusion."

Robert Scheer writes in today's Los Angeles Times that "moderate Republicans and consistent conservatives would be supporting John Kerry" if they would stick to their own principles. And he quotes three top Republicans who've been telling us for a while that they don't trust the White House and the Pentagon. Sen. Chuck Hagel: "The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq." Sen. John McCain: "We made serious mistakes." Sen. Richard G. Lugar, who blames "the incompetence in the administration" for what Scheer terms "the glaring failures in Iraq."

Coming from a vociferous liberal columnist like Scheer, that's to be expected. But even the conservative columnist David "Bobo" Brooks -- who claims idiotically that Kerry's speech "substantively" was "completely irresponsible" -- concludes: "This country has long needed to have a straight up-or-down debate on the war. Now that Kerry has positioned himself as the antiwar candidate, it can."

Bring on the debates. And let's have three of them, not just the two that the White House is pushing for. Karl Rove has good reason for knocking back the number. He wants to limit the potential damage. Without a teleprompter (even with one), his candidate is capable of screwing up what he's been trained to say.

In his response yesterday to Kerry's point that U.S. troops should leave Iraq, for example, the Nincompoop trapped himself with one of his typical slips of the tongue. He said in rebuttal (and I quote from the video), "It will be better off if we did leave." Oops. Realizing his mistake quickly (I'll give him that), he reversed himself: "If we didn't -- if we left, the world would be worse." And on he sailed. Nobody in his friendly pre-screened audience seemed to notice the slip. In the debates that will be different, right?

Postscript: Glad to see I wasn't the only one who noticed. Here's Dan Frumkin, reporting in The Washington Post:

Bush was talking about the situation in Iraq, which critics say he is sugarcoating.

"It's tough as heck in Iraq right now because people are trying to stop democracy," he said. "That's what you're seeing. And Iraqis are losing lives, and so are some of our soldiers. And it breaks my heart to see the loss of innocent life and to see brave troops in combat lose their life. It just breaks my heart. But I understand what's going on. These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave. That's what they want us to do."

Then, he said: "And I think the world would be better off if we did leave." Pause. "If we didn't -- if we left, the world would be worse," he corrected himself.

What a sorry excuse for a president. Does anybody really believe his soap opera of a broken heart? Come on. The prevaricating "bring it on" gunslinger must have gotten his signals crossed with an episode of "As the World Turns."