Wednesday, July 23, 2003

"Weapons of mass redaction"

MoDo here:

This correspondence from the Office of the Vice President to the ambassador to the U.S. was redacted by the Office of the Vice President for national and electoral security reasons:

Dear Prince bin ,

...

We are pumped about the double rubout of the Hussein boys. We really needed that win. It could be a game-changer for us. The stock market killed on the killings. And the timing will help cover your royal , too.

When the 9/11 commission report comes out tomorrow, I think you will be well satisfied with our efforts to keep you guys out of it.

We have almost as much experience as you at keeping private matters veiled. It's not good to overburden the American people with too much complicated information.

Here in the House, we've mastered the art of moving beyond what people once thought was important to look for. First, we switched from looking for Osama to looking for Saddam. Then we switched from looking for "weapons" to looking for "weapons programs." Now Wolfie has informed the public that we need to worry less about finding weapons in Iraq than building democracy.

The trick is to keep moving. Just yesterday, we shifted the blame for the uranium debacle in the president's State of the speech from George Tenet at the C.I.A. to Stephen Hadley at the N.S.C.

Where's the parody, though?