Jeff at Protein Wisdom sums up the situation:

If we are to believe the subtext of The New York Times / Kerry / CBS missing explosives story—which argues, however obliquely, that US troops under the command of the Bushies allowed high-grade explosives to be pilfered by terrorists from beneath their noses—we must accept at least two conditional assumptions upon which the Times / Kerry / CBS News axis pins its hopes—first, that an initial cursory search by the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division overlooked (or, at the very least, missed the IAEA seals labeling) the explosives that were in fact still there at the facility; and second, that between this time (April 10) and the time “a special U.S. exploitation team looking for weapons of mass destruction searched all 32 bunkers and 87 buildings” and found nothing (May 27), hostiles were able to remove the explosives from the facility while many US forces remained in the general area (and where the roads were closed)—managing not only to avoid detection by US forces on the ground, but managing likewise to thwart surveillance by satellites and spy planes, loading the explosives on a large number of heavy trucks and disappearing unnoticed. Couple these two conditional assumptions with the Times / Kerry / CBS News’ cabal’s omission, in its recent reporting, of two reports from early April of 2003 suggesting the 3ID had already investigated the Al Qakaa facility, and we’re now left with yet another narrative nodal point where—if we are to believe the Times / Kerry / CBS version of events—we must assume US military command incompetence is ascendent.

...Or (and hereÂ’s the possibility the NYT / Kerry / CBS collective doesnÂ’t want to acknowledge) another explanation is, the explosives had already been either removed or destroyed before US troops arrived.

Granted, this second possibility isn’t so sexy—no stealth super terrorists to embarrass the dundering US military and its evil, arrogant Commander in Chimp by filching materials needed to detonate a nuclear weapon out from under our imperialist noses—but from the standpoint of plausibility (and, I almost hasten to add, terrestrial physics) ...well, I’ll let you decide which of the two scenarios is more likely.

Get over there for the links, updates, and other coverage of this issue—as well as pictures of John Edwards with bunnies and pages from Martha Stewart's prison diary. It's your basic one-stop shopping for info and entertainment.

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Via Protein Wisdom, George Stephanopoulos and Condi Rice get into a spirited discussion about whether Iraq's aluminum tubes really were destined for nuclear weapons. Goldstein suggests that their debate reflects the philosophical divide between those who don't support the war and those of us who do: that we honestly believe the situation called for erring on the side of caution—with caution defined as "most likely to be in the best interests of the United States."

Commenter Sharkman then suggests that the correct response from Condi was this:

“Look, you diminutive semi-gay-hair-dresser-looking (not that there’s anything wrong with that) snot-nosed pundit!  The only thing you and your kind ever have to do is talk, talk, talk, but in MY world, in which I am an extremely POWERFUL WOMAN, ACTION must be taken!  And so ACTION IS TAKEN, sometimes on the basis of information that is not 100% perfect.  Now shut your cute little mouth and bring mama another espressso.  Can you do anything about this hair . . . ?”

Apparently, it's supposed to be read in an Aretha Franklin voice, the premise being (I believe) that in a more enlightened time Aretha would have had Dr. Rice's amazing education and experience and could have been NSA. Of course, foreign policy's gain would have been art's loss. So it goes.

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