Blogoland

Cathy Young, a war-supporter and a writer for Reason and The Boston Globe, offers what is a fairly clear-eyed examination of the claims being tossed about by the partisans on pre-war intelligence. It's a fairly succinct piece, so read it all.

The only issue I take with her are these two grafs:

A news analysis in The Washington Post also points to holes in the argument that "Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence."

Of course, many Bush supporters will no doubt say that the Post critique is driven by ideological bias and the desire to take down Bush. And so we're back to square one: it all depends on the political lens through which different commentators view the evidence.

Well, it's all fine and good that Bush supporters think that way. But even if the Post were a Bush-bashing rag made insane by the President's actions, that wouldn't make their assertions untrue. As Ms. Young aptly states: "The charge that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence data either is true, or isn't true. There's no such thing as an unpatriotic fact." [Via Hit and Run]