Cheney Sticks to His Delusions

Tony Capaccio writes for Bloomberg that the report draws "a direct connection between the Sept. 16 White House briefing and Cheney's public comments thereafter.

"Four days later, Cheney referred at fundraiser to a 'well-established pattern of cooperation between Iraq and terrorists.'

"And on Dec. 2, Cheney warned in a speech that Hussein's regime 'has had high-level contact with al-Qaeda going back a decade and has provided training to al-Qaeda terrorists.' His language mirrored that on briefing chart entitled 'Summary of Known Iraq-al-Qaeda Contacts -- 1990-2002.'"

Here is the full text of the report; as well as the slides used by Feith's office in its presentation to senior White House officials.

On one slide entitled "Fundamental Problems with How Intelligence Community is Assessing Information," Feith's office suggests that the CIA and others were underestimating how hard Iraq and Al Qaeda would be trying to hide their relationship -- so that, in their words, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

That, of course, is highly reminiscent of the administration's key pre-war assertion that the lack of evidence of Iraqi WMDs proved how diligently Saddam was hiding them. In both cases, the administration stood traditional intelligence-gathering methodology on its head by insisting that lack of evidence was more indicative than evidence -- in other words that conviction trumped facts.

The Limbaugh Connection

It's not a coincidence that Cheney was talking to Limbaugh yesterday. The show has been one of Cheney's favorite venues.

As I wrote in my January 29 column, The Unraveling of Dick Cheney, Cheney is increasingly out of touch with reality. He seems to think that by asserting things that are simply untrue, he can make others believe they are so.

In Limbaughland, he's right.

In Limbaughland, not only were Saddam and Al Qaeda linked but -- more significantly -- liberals hate America. In Limbaughland, Cheney can say a lot simply by failing to disagree with his host's assertions.

Consider a few of yesterday's exchanges.

Limbaugh was complaining to Cheney about how the Democrats seem to be primarily motivated by a desire "to make sure we come home defeated."