They’re b-a-a-a-c-k! Those horrible weapons of mass destruction may not be much use at destroying people, but there’s still hope for them, in some quarters, as a useful means to the destruction of George W. Bush’s presidency. After a brief lay-off late last year and during the early part of this, in which the media tried out with greater or less enthusiasm other anti-Bush stories, such as the budget deficit, the criticisms of his former treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill—by the way, a prize of five shares of Alcoa stock, no questions asked, to anyone who can explain to me the meaning of the most famous of these, that the President was “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people”—the alleged arrogance, partisanship, or duplicity of the State of the Union address, and even a patently absurd allegation that he had gone AWOL during his National Guard service, the media returned in February to its constant theme of last summer and autumn, those famously absent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. You’ve got to conclude that, as the media sees things, this was the most promising line of attack.

For, as it was becoming increasingly clear, a line of attack was what the media wanted. Even the pretense of objectivity was scarcely bothered with anymore. No sooner had the administration given in to pressure and appointed a panel to investigate the pre-war intelligence about WMD than the outcry became that the President had already politicized the (bi-partisan)