Cut it out! Don't you know there's a war going on?

BTW, I just love this piece. The line "Trying to destroy Bill Clinton or Robert Bork or any of the innumerable public figures savaged during peacetime is one thing. It is quite another to do so during war." is truly priceless. Just priceless.

From Stratfor.

The problem is this. The administration has held to the WMD line for so long that it has become a separate dogma that can be neither defended nor abandoned. Regardless of whether Rove blew the agent's cover, adhering to a disproved claim in the hopes that no one will notice is not only a bad idea -- it isn't working. At some point the White House must come to grips with the fact that its WMD strategy just isn't flying. There was a reason for invading Iraq. It wasn't WMD. Get on with the war.

On the other side, Washington has become so used to government-by-scandal that even wartime necessities can't stop it. Trying to destroy Bill Clinton or Robert Bork or any of the innumerable public figures savaged during peacetime is one thing. It is quite another to do so during war. It seems to us that if Karl Rove is guilty, then he should be hung from a tree. His action is unforgivable. But -- and this is the crucial point -- discrediting a sitting president during war is very risky. Even Pearl Harbor wasn't investigated until the war was under control.

In other words (we would apologize for editorializing, but we aren't journalists, so no apology needed) -- this is a wonderful time for both sides to cut it out. The White House should admit what we all know -- they screwed up on the WMD issue, or lied. It's one or the other, and the Bush administration is not getting out of this without paying a price. The Democrats should bear in mind that the United States is at war and that there is a difference between winning the White House and destroying it. There is a war on, dammit.

The only winner in all of this is Osama bin Laden. It's beginning to look like his analysis of the United States was shrewder than it might originally have appeared. The United States is self-destructive. Just give it a little push, and Washington will tear itself apart.