Sedition on 42nd Street

Is the New York Times calling for the president's resignation?

The Times editorial page today does a good job of taking the Bush adminsitration to task for misleading the nation about Iraq's nuclear capabilities and ambitions. Particularly reassuring is their dismantling of a number of Bush's defenses, such as "Kerry saw the same intelligence I saw":

The foundation for the administration's claim that it acted on an honest assessment of intelligence analysis - and the president's frequent claim that Congress had the same information he had - has been steadily eroded by the reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 commission. A lengthy report in The Times on Sunday removed any lingering doubts.

Or the aluminum tube hokum:

...the president and his closest advisers told the American people that the overwhelming consensus of government experts was that these new tubes were to be used to make nuclear bomb fuel. Now we know there was no such consensus.

The conclusion is stern and well argued, but it stops a frustrating single step short of stating the obvious:

If Ms. Rice did her job and told Mr. Bush how ludicrous the case was for an Iraqi nuclear program, then Mr. Bush terribly misled the public. If not, she should have resigned for allowing her boss to start a war on the basis of bad information and an incompetent analysis.

Now let's think this through: If Rice didn't inform the president, it means she misled him, she's responsible for the war, and so she should resign. If Rice informed president, it means the president misled the people, he's responsible for the war, and so he should...??

Anybody??