And Bush won;t be too happy. <link>

Along the way he dispels the notion of a liberal press.

Watch the Republicans try to discredit him by asking why he didn't voice his concerns when it may have done some good rather than as a vehicle to sell books. And they have a valid point. But that is another post. For today, let's enjoy the bash session.

yeah stormin normans stopped short of Bagdad in round conflict one--and contractors from America put out kuwaiti fires in round one--Plus Oil For Food for UN CEOs in perpetuity

How quickly we forget we stopped short of Bagdad's Russian built pipelines Hussein's clan kin threated to set fire too that Russia built for Shell and Dutch Royal!

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Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" led by President Bush and aimed at "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."

Shear's piece does not specify "the major reason for going to war".

Does McClellan's book ever tell us what it was? If yes, what was it? If not, why not?

Americans who allowed themselves to be misled by "a sophisticated political propaganda campaign" are as culpable in their own right for Iraq as Bush was culpable in his.

The glaring omission I see in McClellan's book deals with the destruction of data. He was still there when we found out that over 5 million e-mail's had been destroyed. No mention let alone indignation. So Rove lied to him. Who didn't Rove lie to? That is hardly the story of the Bush administration.

I remember screeming that the case for war had not been made, even pointing to Powell's UN session and saying it didn't pass the smell test. And this was before we learned that he was using a plagarized thesis paper of a student examining the risk before the first gulf war.

We have known for a long time that Bush was preparing for war with Iraq from the day he set foot in the Whitehouse. WMD was cooked up only after 9/11 provided them with a golden opportunity to gin up a propaganda campaign that was at its apex in Cincinnati in October 2002 with Bush declaring that it would be too late if the attack came in the form of a mushroom cloud. Evidence wasn't necessary; only the fear card was necessary. Alarm bells were going off everywhere. 30 million people demonstrated worldwide one weekend. Opposition was really quite massive but that didn't deter Bush.

Why did we go to war with Iraq? North Korea developed nuclear weapons on Bush's watch and was testing rockets to deliver those weapons. They were obviously a far greater threat than Iraq but we attacked Iraq, making it hard to believe that weapons was the reason for war.

I have always resisted saying it is all about oil but neither have I dismissed it. I just haven't seen enough evidence to support that line of thinking. Bush is part of a power-hungry cabal but even that doesn't explain going to war in Iraq. Accordingly, my crystal ball is cloudy when it comes to the reason we invaded Iraq leaving myself with a grade of D+.

The rationale for invasion was a witches brew of special interests but the anchor rationale was oil, plain and simple. It's still oil. If McClellan's book outs the real reason, he will have said it was about oil.

At this point I think we just have to hope the rest of the pack are encouraged to write a book as I suspect it will be that combination of rubbish that makes the picture clearer.

I am absolutely astounded by the distancing act in a "confession of wrongdoing" Man oh man. Like you I question everything now. You got there way before me. I just want these people to go away but there is something to be learned from their egocentric scrambling.

Maybe you'll get your answers from them soon as they are like cockroaches at this point. I'd withhold grading for now as you may soon end up with an A +. It may be that the reasoning was not oil but rather a circumstance of supporting bad seeds permiating the arena. It may have escaped you because it is so illogical as to almost be simply a contaminated pit. There are many books on power seeking 'yes men' encouraging the unthinkable when they have the ear of those on high. If the leader himself is weak this can be a result.

Kudos to you. Well said.

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Oil production obviously cannot consume 100 percent of the world's income. My intuitive, uninformed guess is that it cannot go above 15 percent. If we see oil at $300 per barrel, we will be looking out over the smoldering ruins of the world's economy.

The raw numbers aren't deep, dark secrets. The oil production and oil prices are posted by the US Energy Information Agency. The EIA keeps two sets of books on oil production. I used the smaller one that includes conventional oil (and gas condensate) but does not include synthetic fuels. For the 2007 world economic output, almost identical numbers come from the International Monetary Fund and the CIA.

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(You can be 110% sure the CIA didn't first cop to the prospect of $300 oil in 2007.)