Olbermann's Special Comment on Iran NIE Nuclear Report

Olbermann's special commentary on Iran's NIE Nuclear Report.

"Bush, Pathological Liar or Idiot-in-Chief?"

There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr. Bush has left us with tonight.

We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked, at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency an unapologetic warmonger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

After spokeswoman Dana Perino's announcement from the White House late last night, the timeline is inescapable and clear.

In August the president was told by his hand-picked major-domo of intelligence, Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking, worrying-warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what "everybody thought" about Iran might be, in essence, crap.

Yet on Oct. 17, the president said of Iran and its President Ahmadinejad:

"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon."

And as he said that, Mr. Bush knew that at bare minimum there was a strong chance that his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians.

Or was it, Sir, to scare the Americans?

Does Iran not really fit into the equation here? Have you just scribbled it into the fill-in-the-blank on the same template you used to scare us about Iraq?

In August, any commander-in-chief still able-minded or uncorrupted or both, Sir, would have invoked the quality the job most requires: mental flexibility.

A bright man, or an honest man, would have realized no later than the McConnell briefing that the only true danger about Iran was the damage that could be done by an unhinged, irrational Chicken Little of a president shooting his mouth off, backed up by only his own hysteria and his own delusions of omniscience.

Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Bush.

The Chicken Little of presidents is the one, Sir, that you see in the mirror.

And the mind reels at the thought of a vice president fully briefed on the revised intel as long as two weeks ago, briefed on the fact that Iran abandoned its pursuit of this imminent threat four years ago, who never bothered to mention it to his boss.

It is nearly forgotten today, but throughout much of Ronald Reagan's presidency it was widely believed that he was little more than a front man for some never-viewed, behind-the-scenes string-puller.

Today, as evidenced by this latest remarkable, historic malfeasance, it is inescapable that Dick Cheney is either this president's evil ventriloquist or he thinks he is.

What servant of any of the 42 previous presidents could possibly withhold information of this urgency and gravity and wind up back at his desk the next morning, instead of winding up before a congressional investigation or a criminal one?

Mr. Bush, if you can still hear us, if you did not previously agree to this scenario in which Dick Cheney is the actual detective and you're Remington Steele, you must disenthrall yourself: Mr. Cheney has usurped your constitutional powers, cut you out of the information loop and led you down the path to an unprecedented presidency in which the facts are optional, the intel is valued less than the hunch and the assistant runs the store.

The problem is, Sir, your assistant is robbing you and your country blind.

Not merely in monetary terms, Mr. Bush, but, more important, of the traditions and righteousness for which we have stood, at great risk, for centuries: honesty, law, moral force.

Mr. Cheney has helped, Sir, to make your administration into the kind our ancestors saw in the 1860s and 1870s and 1880s, the ones that abandoned Reconstruction and sent this country marching backward into the pit of American apartheid.

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland — presidents who will be remembered only in a blur of failure, Mr. Bush.

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[InTheSticks1881]

The only presidential candidate who will stop this madness is Ron Paul.

[wiskawind]

Bush and Co need to stand trial for the crimes they have committed against the American people, and against humanity. I believe, Bush and his Republican henchmen have been trying to pull off a coup, right here within OUR own government; that is treason!

[nadershekarchi]

U.Sir Were R & Will Be In Dark As U. & I & everybody else Have seen What Happened After U. opened your mouth. Now, U. can put your brain (if there is any)in gear Before U. engage that stupid mouth of yours next time. Persians Not Only Were Scared they Loved Bush Leadership With G.B. Cheney & Rumsfeld Bless'm all. They Found the Problem 10 years ago & U. R. lost in your little mind To Understand it. Best Wishes

[stubkar]

I hear MSNBC is now accepting applications.

[Dubyel]

@JediDude38 No, I dropped out after my second degree. On Monday, May 31, 2010, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, announced that Iran now has more than two tons of enriched uranium, enough to build two nuclear weapons. Just wanted to let you know in case you missed that news in your galaxy far, far away.  If you really believe that the Iranians stopped their pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003, your head is hopelessly buried in Tatooinian sand.

[JediDude38]

@Dubyel : On top of that you are missing the point big time. What is being pointed out here is that Iran had STOPPED their pursuit of a Nuclear weapon in 2003.  Bush & company knew this but was still trying to rile up the American people for an invasion of Iran. Bush was not right on this or much of anything else. BTW, did you see the last Iranian missile test ... wasn't such a smashing success but hey, at least it didn't blow up on the pad this time ...

[JediDude38]

@Dubyel : 05/11/2010 - OK ... let me see if I'm understanding what you're saying ... you are actually taking the word of Ahmadinejad over the findings of almost every single other Intelligence service of almost every other free country in the world, even RUSSIA ... are you serious? A lunatic tells you that his nation is a Nuclear State while everybody else says they're not ... and you believe him. When did you drop out of school ... 1st or 2nd grade. Good Grief.

[Dubyel]

February 11, 2010 - Ahmadinejad: Iran is now a nuclear state. Bush was right. Not a peep out of Olbermaniac. If he ever does mention the story, you can bet it will be to blame Bush for the NIE being wrong about Iran and thereby lulling America into a false sense of security.

[britestudiosllc]

Go back to ESPN.

[ars21689]

Obviously now that's bullshit but he criticizes Bush for using faulty intelligence to go into Iraq yet Olby seems to take this report as truth with no questions asked.

[RoughRider1976]

Why is this BUM still on TV? He is classic mentally ill liberal, who will continue to bash anyone who is not a leftist even as the the mushroom cloud washes over him!!!

FU ODOR-MAN!!

[PhanaJG24]

Hey Uberdork, now that you have been exposed as a complete moron, why do you not have the shame to STFU and go away?