I protest.

What goes around.

Over a month ago I wrote an entry here called "The Bush psyche." Well, today Steve Gilliard at the Daily KOS wrote "Time to admit the obvious: there are no WMD," in which he quotes a story from Capitol Hill Blue, "White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes."

"The [Niger] report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings."

Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said.

"He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."

There's quite the tempest in the comments to this particular entry over there. Lots of people are questioning the validity of the CHB story. Apostropher has picked this up as well.

Honestly, I don't know whether the story is true, but I would tend to believe it. As I wrote in comments on Kos' site, this behavior is entirely consistent with that described by John Brady Kiesling in the Salon interview I quoted on May 30. I said that I would actually be surprised if Bush hadn't behaved in the way described in the CHB article. It is entirely consistent with his character. It's also a very simple answer to a complex question. Why did he go ahead with the flawed evidence? Because he refused to see that it was flawed. Why? Because he didn't want to see that it was flawed. He only saw what he wanted to see.

Now, this isn't a sign of Bush being "just f***ing nuts," as Apostropher puts it. People do this all the time. It is, however, a sign that he has some real problems with reality when he continues to embrace fantasy despite the fact that reality keeps hitting him in the face.

Bush is not a healthy man. I said this on May 30 and it is if anything only more true now. I shudder to consider how he will react if and when his delusions are finally brought into the open.

UPDATE 7/9/2003, 17:39: Doug Thompson at Capitol Hill Blue has retracted the story. Seems he, along with the rest of us, was conned by this "Wilkinson" guy. Kudos to Thompson for owning up, though, and apologizing.