No Trust, Must Verify

It should come as no surprise that any trust the current administration has with me has long since been spent. I couldn't quite point to exactly when I decided that the default position for anything that comes out of their mouths should be a skeptical one. There are, after all, so many to point at from watching an American city slip under the waves to the continuing erosion of civil liberties to the continuing revelations of how the Iraq war was not just mishandled but conceived and birthed from a pack of misleading and incomplete information that led our leaders to the conclusions they wanted to make in the first place. It's that last one that gives me no end of pause when the start making claims about Iran.

However odious and frightening these claims may be (I remember the same drums being beat in advance of the Iraq debacle.) they also present an opportunity. The same one that was squandered in the run up to the last war. Namely, to re-establish the Congressional duties of oversight, to curb the powers of a Presidency run amok, and, as a nation, to act out of self-interest rather than blind fear. Among other things. But it seems to me that the administration has gone to the well one too many times with this and now it's time to hammer them for it. Suggestions like Mr. Henley's should be heeded. Because while the administration is no doubt hoping to rally their wanning fortunes by coming up with an 11th hour surprise, what they're really doing is handing us all that most precious of comodities – a second chance at getting things right.