Say Anything Blog

"Baghdad” David Bonior is now campaign manager for John Edwards

McDermott and Bonior are two specimens of what Lenin, referring to Westerners who denied the existence of Lenin’s police-state terror, called ``useful idiots.’’ Perhaps Iraqi officials, knowing fathomless gullibility when they see it--they have dealt with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan--actually said such things. Or perhaps McDermott and Bonior heard what they wished to hear. Either way, these innocents abroad should have known that Iraq’s proclaimed policy is:

The only permissible inspections would be those permitted by the 1998 agreement Saddam reached with his servant, Annan, who was last seen doing his Neville Chamberlain impersonation, waving a piece of paper (Iraq’s recent letter promising weapons inspections ``without conditions") that he said meant peace in our time. Under the 1998 agreement, various inspections are forbidden, such as any at eight ``presidential sites’’--about 12 square miles of facilities, with thousands of buildings.

-from a 2002 editorial by George Will

Baghdad Bonior