07/07/04: Post by Edge
Posted by: BLOWBACK
Huge news from the Financial Times (http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373567507): The official inquiry in the United Kingdom will confirm that Saddam did try to buy uranium from Niger. (Hat tip to Instapundit:http://instapundit.com/archives/016446.php) Somebody call Joe Wilson and break him the news that once a fool, always a fool.The center-left at the New Republic (http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904), and the conspiracy-driven left represented by Joshua Micah Marshall (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003133) are now embracing a wild speculation, one that resembles Madelaine Albright's nutty question to Morton Kondracke of a few months ago when she asked if the Bush Adminsitration had Osama locked up and ready for pre-election delivery to American authorities. This new version has the Pakistanis working to grab a "high value target" in time to step on John Kerry's acceptance speech. (As though that speech is going to set America marching again to the sounds of the sixties.) This is more evidence of "Michael Moore disease" spreading among the Dems. Marshall has fallen for wild theories before, but not the New Republic. They'll probably be speculating about the timing of the Financial Times story as well. Very weird. But not without precedent. The conspiracy-addicted left had the first George Bush secretly flying off to Paris to discourage the Iranians from releasing the American hostages in 1980. The fever swamp has always been there within the Democratic Party, at least since the Vietnam era. The problem is its encroachment today into the mainstream of the party. Responsible party leaders no longer tell the cranks to sit down and shut up. Could JFK even imagine the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate hugging some nut, but Time Magazine reports this week that Tom Dacshle hugged Michael Moore at the conclusion of the D.C. premier of F9/11. Yeah, that happened. What a crack-up, and the patients don't even realize that they have the disease.