Dick Cheney, whose approval rating is two points below cold sores (but still a full point ahead of groin pulls) has joined the "If we were wrong, so was everyone else" crusade.
My thinking on this whole issue seems to be evolving to the following rule. I think we should get rid of everyone in government who thought Saddam Hussein possessed serious Weapons of Mass Destruction and either had a nuclear weapon or was close to getting one. Maybe these government officials were duplicitious. Maybe they were just gullible. I don't want either kind in any position of power.
There would be one exception to this. That would be if that government official can say "I was deceived" and — and this next part is crucial — is taking whatever steps they can to ferret out the deceivers and take the appropriate action against them.
Back in the Wacky World of Watergate, there was something Nixon did — or rather, that he didn't do — that caused a lot of people to think he was guilty of something. What he didn't do was to get mad at those who had broken the law. He complained a lot about the press and about the Democrats, both of whom wanted to get to the bottom of who'd dunnit. But he never pounded on the desk and yelled, "Damn it! This is the Law and Order Administration and we're going to find out who authorized these break-ins and no matter who they are, they're doing hard time for it!" In the same vein, a lot of people decided O.J. Simpson was guilty of that double murder because he only spoke (and rather unemotionally) about "finding the real killers" — and then only as a means of clearing his own name. He didn't shout, "I'm going to find the bastard who killed the mother of my children and make him pay for his sick crime!"
The current White House line seems to be admitting — or coming darn close to admitting — that the administration acted on bad intelligence. Okay, I think we all know that by now. I might be willing to believe that the Bush crew had no hand in the doctoring or slanting of that intelligence if I saw somebody high up in that crowd saying, "The President of the United States cannot conduct a war based on faulty information. We're going to find the people responsible for this, fire them and maybe prosecute them." Until they do, a lot of people (including myself) are going to believe that they don't do that because they know such an investigation would uncover massive fraud and/or incompetence where they don't want it uncovered.
I'm guessing that by Thanksgiving Day, Cheney will be a point below groin pulls…and giving leprosy a run for its money.