awww, here we go again.

maybe he's telling truth, maybe, as you suggest he's an idiot, or maybe, and this is the third option, he's really really really bitter. he was fired! you could discredit this guy on the stand in a minute.

but even if i give him the benefit of the doubt, nobody ever answers this one question - if saddam had nothing, if there was never anything (and we know that's not true because he used gas on his own people), why, on the brink of his own destruction, with thousands of troops set to invade, is he dicking around UN weapons inspectors to the very end. cmon and look in the closets id say to the UN. cmon and check out uday's monkey cage if you want to, and it will get you guys off my back. he was hiding something baby. the fact that it's still hidden is not an answer to the question of why not come clean if there's nothing there in the first place?

I'm not a defender of W. but I gotta say that the flawed logic the left is using to condemn him pisses me off. of course there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq and saddam was always going to want bigger and better ones. hell, i have a couple of neighbors on this street i suspect of having WMDs. the larger question is what sort of threat those weapons posed. thats the context in which the question of whether this war justified or not should be framed.

I am not taking a side on this particular matter. I think it is very odd that a former member of the cabinet would blab like this. I find it odd that US jury members blab. There ought to be a law that if you take stuff out of the room like this guy has, you go to jail, just like the lady on the jury in BC who batted here eyes at the guy in the dock.<p>By the way, I don't think that the "left" - whatever that is other than just people who don't like Bush or agree with Frum/Rush or support welfare - do not have a flawed logic so much as a bizzarely poor ability to express themselves. Bush has, as does any administration of any government, validly attackable positions. The unseemliness of the primary system of selecting an opposition for an incumbent, as opposed to having standing opposition in a parliament, may in large part provide for this unfocused free for all.

Further on this from the BBC. <p>A question: is "left" what a supporter of the Bush administration calls a opponent of its policy? We now call the dead "hero" and the person other than "us" using violence "terrorist" ...so is this another neologism?

I don't know if US/CBS network is readily available, but on the "news magazine" 60 minutes last night O'Neill was interviewed. I think it would be hard to dismiss him as a wingnut, and definitely not a left wingnut. What he has to say is just a devastating confirmation that the US is basically in the control right now of a corporacracy, a cynical business/government group (I'll avoid cabal) that is reaping the fat of our economy without forsight or concern with future implications.
I don't really think it is fair to call what he is doing "blabbing". For democracy to work it must be transparent and known to the ultimate powerholder (the voter) unless specific security concerns apply. And history on our side of the border has shown time and again that whoever has power (left or right) will invoke the boogeyman of security any time anything embarrasing might be said.

Off topic, US jurymembers are subject to strong penalties if they discuss anything about a trial while it is in progress. It is only after the trial is completed that free speech kicks back in.

Hey, Toby. I just noted your email and see who you are. Thanks for dropping by. Interesting that you and Portland are four hours drive from each other and both answering my queries about this. <p>Our criminal code does have a perpetual cone of silence over jurors under section 649, which provides:<blockquote class="smalltext">649. Every member of a jury, and every person providing technical, personal, interpretative or other support services to a juror with a physical disability, who, except for the purposes of<blockquote>(a) an investigation of an alleged offence under subsection 139(2) in relation to a juror, or<p>
(b) giving evidence in criminal proceedings in relation to such an offence,</blockquote>discloses any information relating to the proceedings of the jury when it was absent from the courtroom that was not subsequently disclosed in open court is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.</blockquote>