You've got to be kidding...

The report of the WMD intelligence commission gets a suitable evisceration in an editorial in the New York Times. The contortions they went through to allow them to blame the intelligence community while fiercely avoiding looking at the influence of policy makers are truly outstanding. But Dana Milbank in the Washington Post brings us one of the funniest moments of the presentation:

Judge Laurence H. Silberman, co-chairman of the commission that released its report on U.S. intelligence failures yesterday, was given "full and complete access" to whatever information he needed. But when it came to what questions President Bush asked of the CIA, Silberman learned everything he needed to know from Bob Woodward.

"Actually, if you read the Woodward book, it would appear that the president did ask tough questions," Silberman said in a news conference hosted by the White House.

Why would the commission, with unfettered access to the government's most sensitive documents, rely on a book anybody can buy at Borders?

Pressed on this point, Silberman allowed that the commission did not interview Bush or Vice President Cheney during its 14-month inquiry -- although it had a "discussion" about "the nature of our inquiry."

So, while preparing a 600 page report concluding that the mistakes were the result of an "echo chamber" within the intelligence community, they didn't talk to the Vice President about his unprecedented visits to the CIA. And there was apparently no other consideration of the effect the public statements of top administration officials before the war might have led to such an environment. Or why, if there was such unanimity in the intelligence community that there needed to be a special office set up in the Pentagon, so that it could get its own analysis. "Actually, if you read the Woodward book"? It reads like an April Fool's joke.

Apparently, the long list of articles reporting the influence of policy makers on intelligence reports were just, well, uh, um, "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"