Last week I wrote an item commending Dear Leader and his courage -- yeah, courage -- in speaking out about Liberia and vowing U.S. help.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I'm as much a rube as all those people who thought Iraqis, not Saudi Arabians, flew the jets on Sept. 11, 2001. Bush tells me something I want to hear and I believe it.

Well, today's Washington Wire in the Wall Street Journal has this little item by Jackie Calmes:

"Liberia Intervention splits administration, rankles conservatives."

Seems that Rumfeld "harbors misgivings," but that State and the White House still favor intercession on national-security grounds, and a "senior Pentagon official says" sending troops is a fait accomplie.

I don't know. The piece goes on to conclude with this:

"They cite humanitarian grounds -- as in Iraq, absent weapons discoveries there [ed. Interesting. 'Humanitarian grounds' are now the reasons we went into Iraq? Yup. Aren't you glad they clarified that?]. But conservatives are appalled. 'In Iraq, at least there was... [sic] a semblence that national security was at stake [ed. A semblence? Groan.],' says Cato Institute's Christopher Preble. Televangelist Pat Robertson, who has business in Liberia, blasts Bush for backing Muslim rebels over a Christian president."

Never mind that that Christian presides over an army of amputee-ing adolescents, exporting chaos throughout the region.

Well, thank goodness the administration is such a great supporter of the UN and multilateralism.

The familiar pattern continues: Talk nice to convince the Soccer Moms you're not a right wing nutcase, than quietly do something completely different.

How long can George Tenet hold the bag or keep his job? They're prevaricating. Big time, as Dick Cheney might say. The CIA did tell them to remove the sentence which indicated that Niger had shipped uranium to Iraq. The CIA knew the reports were false in 2002. The administration then changed the sentence so that it would indicate that "British intelligence said" there were reports that Nigeria had done so. That's what the CIA approved, which is in itself pretty pathetic, but it clearly indicates that senior White House officials knew before the State of the Union that the statement just wasn't true. So Tenet will have to either keep bending over or resign. It's amazing this Clinton-appointee has survived this long.

Josh Micah Marshall has a good series of pieces on this. Scroll down to see his transcript of Larry King's interview with Bob Woodward. What a shame. The former metro DC reporter who took a minor story on a break-in at DNC HQs into the biggest political scandal of our times, now finds that lying about dangers so imminent that we must launch a preemptive war RIGHT NOW is no big deal.

Slate chronicles Bush and Cos. serial lying and selective intelligence -- this time on the economy.

*****

And the sports pages today are no relief either. Violence erupts in Milwaukee -- this could be bigger than the Black Sox Scandal! My favorite part of the story is the bloviating of Rick Schlesigner, the Brewer's executive v-p: "It's an insane act of a person whose conduct is unjustifiable. It sickened me to see it. I can't put into words the anger I feel and the sense of outrage I have." If I were a Brewers fan, I'd be sickened and outraged too -- at Schlesinger and the rest of the bozos who run the chronically crappy Brewers.

There is some solace in the sports pages, though. If you follow the Tour and the toughest cats in the world who compete in it, then read Samual Abt's consistently wonderful stories, day after gruelling, fantastic day.