Bush Tells a Tale

"HH: Now does that mean if we know that there is an IED manufacturing facility over the border in Iran or Syria, that that is now fair game for American weaponry?

"TS: No, we're not going that far. And frankly. . . .

"HH: Are you ruling that out?

"TS: Like I said, we're not going that far. I think what you've got to understand, Hugh, is that there are a whole lot of things in play, and you also understand that when it comes to military activities and doctrine, there's only so much you say publicly."

On MSNBC, Chris Matthews and Snow had a contentious exchange. Via Think Progress:

"MATTHEWS: So he will seek congressional approval before any action against Iran?

"SNOW: You are talking about something we are not even discussing.

"MATTHEWS: Yeah, but you are, Tony, because look at this. 'I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.' Isn't that about Iran?

"SNOW: It, it -- yeah, it is, in part, and what it is is it's saying, look, we are going to make sure that anybody who tries to take aggressive action -- but when Bill Clinton sent a carrier task force into the South China Sea after the North Koreans fired a missile over Japan, that was not as a prelude to war against North Korea. You know how it works.

"MATTHEWS: No, I'm just concerned because, very much in the years, in the months building up to this war in Iraq, we heard a kind of a drumbeat of the dangers from Iraq and the nuclear weaponry and what we're going to do about it, and then gradually we went to war....

"My concern is we're gonna see a ginning up situation whereby we fall in hot pursuit any effort by the Iranians to interfere with Iraq. We take a couple shots at them, they react, then we bomb the hell out of them and hit their nuclear installations without any without any action by Congress. That's the scenario I fear, an extra-constitutional war is what I'm worried about.

"SNOW: Well, you have been watching too many old movies --