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Josh Marshall has been all over the Al-Qaqaa story in the past few days, and he’s done an amazing job.  He’s especially delightful on the sorry (if ancillary) spectacle of CNN getting rolled by Drudge.  (Remind me again why any “news” organization runs with material from Sludge?) In fact, his stuff has been so good that I didn’t think I needed to weigh in at all, since I don’t think I have too many readers who don’t already know about TPM.

But lately, the flaws in Josh’s reality-based method have become all too apparent.  Marshall is alternately bewildered, outraged, and bemused by the Bush Administration’s feverish series of spins on the weapons cache:  first it was Administration officials saying “they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded,” then it was the Iraqis’ fault for not guarding them (damn, they let us down again), then it was that the explosives were not a “proliferation risk” (presumably because they’ve already proliferated?), then it was that the White House didn’t know about Al-Qaqaa until October 15 (oh, that’s an airtight defense right there), then it was that the weapons aren’t such a big deal because they represent only a tiny fraction of all the explosives in Iraq (I’d hate to have to write that letter home to the families-- “we regret to inform you . . . but there is some consolation in knowing that your son or daughter was killed by only a tiny fraction of all the explosives in Iraq"), and most recently it’s that the weapons were already gone when we got there (except that they weren’t).

And Josh thinks that all this is further evidence of the Bush junta’s characteristically frantic lying and criminal incompetence.

But that just shows you why reality-based reporting is inadequate in situations like this, in which the Bush Administration is merely sound asleep and dreaming.  As Freud famously pointed out, the unconscious is indiscriminate in such matters:  in the dream-based community, one can say, “the kettle I borrowed from you was fine when I used it; besides, the holes were already there when I borrowed it; and what’s more, I never borrowed a kettle from you,” and there is no contradiction.  Thus:  I don’t know how the RDX and the HMX got out of the kettle, they’re not that important anyway, it was your fault for not putting a lid on the stuff, only a little bit leaked out, and the kettle didn’t have any RDX or HMX in it when you gave it to me.

Which is why, in the end, reality-based reporting needs to be supplemented by outlandish theoretical speculation.

Posted by on 10/27 at 02:24 AM

  1. That report was from Drudge on the Internets?  Well, we don’t have any actual reporters in the field, you know. But don’t worry. You can depend on CNN.  CNN, the most trusted name in news.

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  04:47 AM

  2. I believe that the White House is using the ‘Family Circus’ school of reasoning. Picture the gutted storage facility with Mom asking, Who let the bombs out?’ and the Bushmen each saying, ‘I dunno’, or ‘Not me!’ Picture further the adorable antics of ‘Idunno’ and ‘Not-me’ selling powerful explosives to terrorists in the background. Criminal incompetence, sure, but also adorable! Now, if we could just get Dead Grandpa into the picture…

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  05:49 AM

  3. My thoughts exactly about Josh Marshall.  An AMAZING job, I must have hit reload a thousand times on TPM yesterday.  It was flat out hilarious to read the flurry of desparate panic found on sites like lucianne, Tennessee law professor, and bear with ecosystem, where they were trying to find a theory, ANY theory that would stick in explaining this mess.  There must have been two dozen postings from self-proclaimed demolition and munitions experts; of course, no posts explaining or defending Bush Co.’s completely baffling response.  But watch out for the PUSH-BACK!

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  06:26 AM

  4. But it’s certainly true that there’s no point trying to defeat this administration with rational arguments.  They’re not about rational, they’re about Confidence and Faith and and Iron Will and (of course) Justifiable Lying ("we know more—and above all we know what’s best for you").

    Posted by Bean  on  10/27  at  06:42 AM

  5. It’s the Iraqi’s fault...we just found out about it...we know about it but didn’t say anything so the people who took the stuff wouldn’t know we knew or knew that they had it...the explosives were already gone by the time we got there...350 tons, 360 tons, rather small amounts of all the explosives we’ve found...it’s the AIEA’s fault...the NYT should have waited (until after the election) before publishing this...when you criticize us for #$^%@&^ this up you’re really criticizing the troops and giving aid and comfort to the enemy...it’s very hard work…

    But we’re the party of personal responsibility...maybe not government accountability, but personal responsibility all the same.

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  06:55 AM

  6. I don’t know how the RDX and the HMX got out of the kettle, they’re not that important anyway, it was your fault for not putting a lid on the stuff, only a little bit leaked out, and the kettle didn’t have any RDX or HMX in it when you gave it to me.

    You forgot “and besides, it’s all John Kerry’s fault anyway.”

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  07:59 AM

  7. Aw, come on, it’s not Kerry’s fault. Everything that has ever gone wrong, is going wrong, or ever will go wrong is all CLINTON’s fault.

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  08:58 AM

  8. This just in…

    (I paraphrase) “There are a lot of reasons (though I can’t name all of them) those explosives could be missing, and John Kerry is wrong to blame me over it!”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/27/politics/campaign/27CND-CAMP.html?hp&ex=1098936000&en=b1b6e3220cd012a7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  10:15 AM

  9. Dammit, people, take this seriously for once!  Don’t you understand that Karl Rove used a Halliburton-made time machine to go back in time and snatch over 760,000 pounds of munitions, right before the invasion? Why? Well, to give Kerry and Co. something to talk about in this last week of the campaigns while he secretly amended the Patriot Act to revoke Roe vs. Wade.  And you guys fell for it!  Come on.

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  11:15 AM

  10. Look, don’t know what this is worth, but yes, I took the stuff.  It was actual proof of WMD’s (not that anyone has noticed that ironically the Dem’s have suddenly discovered WMD’s to actually have been in Iraq!), and my evil plan calls for some douchebag like Kerry to be elected so that in ‘08, my puppet will be in place.  How can I throw an election off if there’s proof of WMD’s?

    (insert evil villain laugh here)

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  11:24 AM

  11. Hey, I blamed Kerry on Monday.  Just for the record.

    Posted by Michael  on  10/27  at  12:31 PM

  12. Here is an operative line from the NBC report.

    “In a letter this month, the IRAQI INTERIM GOVERNMENT told the International Atomic Energy Agency the high explosives were lost to theft and looting due to lack of security.”

    Not “Saddam packed them in his suitcase and took them with him down the spider hole”.  And not “we don’t really know what happened or have all the facts”.

    We gave them sovereignty for THIS!

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  12:33 PM

  13. And if that wasn’t enought, that damn Allawi blamed us for the massacre of 50 of their policemen in training.

    Nice sovereign government there. Be a shame if you lost it.

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  12:35 PM

  14. OK, who pissed off the Iraqis?  Has Allawi already seen through Bush?  He sure acts like he wants Bush to lose.  Suppose he’ll drop another one before the election?

    Posted by  on  10/27  at  04:21 PM

  15. Hey, I’m willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt here. Sure, he’s lied and lied and lied, then lied some more. But maybe it’s different this time? I mean, if Bush is telling the truth on excuse #7: Hussein smuggled out nearly 400 tons of explosives from one of a number of such munitions sites, past our watchful troops who had surrounded Iraq prior to invasion...well, gee, I’d like to know how Hussein did it?

    Posted by Leslie  on  10/27  at  06:38 PM

  16. Oh-oh, I spoke too soon. Drudge says the Russians were in cahoots with Hussein, and they took all the weapons to Syria. Wouldn’t you like to see those satellite images? Why does Pootie-Poot hate Bush? Oh wait, Drudge also reports that documents show the Iraqis are over-stating how much materials were lost. Wanna bet they over-stated by about 4 tons? Whatever happened to good ole stonewalling?

    Posted by Leslie  on  10/27  at  07:20 PM

  17. Wendy wrote: “Everything that has ever gone wrong, is going wrong, or ever will go wrong is all CLINTON‚Äôs fault.”

    Which one?

    Posted by  on  10/28  at  04:50 PM

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