The noise machine

My ears hurt. The GOP noise machine is at full-decibel as they try to distract attention from Karl Rove's scandalous and potentially criminal behavior. They are now rehashing talking points developed in response to Joseph Wilson's original New York Times op-ed piece, in which he called "bullshit" on George W. Bush's State of the Union speech and the famous "16 words" in which Bush lied that Irq had attempted to buy yellowcake from Niger. Bare outlines of the 2003 history, but you can fill in the rest.

In any case, before the sound level gets any higher and you begin whimpering like an Iraqi prisoner forced to withstand the Barney song, crying out, "Alright. Alright. Joe Wilson is a Communist who tried to assassinate G.H.W. Bush and should be arrested for outing his wife as a CIA clerk in the shipping and receiving department," go read Drum who revisits a piece countering the spin machine, written back in those heady days before more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers had died in pursuit of G.W. Bush's heady dreams.