Christina Does "Meet The Press"

Okay, I'm not proud of it, but I'll admit it...I listen to "Meet the Press" (or Meet the Depressed, as my dear husband glibbly called it yesterday) while driving home from church each Sunday. It's a half-hour commute, so I usually only hear the first 30 minutes or so, but based upon that, I have decided that I no longer need to tune in. After all, I think I've got the basic idea down pat now.

For those who are not familiar with the format of the program, let me air the typical transcript of the first 30 minutes:

Tim Russert (host): Today on Meet the Press, we'll talk with Senator Joe Biden, democrat from Delaware and the Secretary of State under the current embroiled republican administration, Condoleeza Rice. Hello and welcome to both of you today. Let me begin with Secretary of State Rice. Ms. Rice, knowing what you know today, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would you still have supported the President's decision to go to war?

Rice: Well Tim, the information we had at the time seemed credible and was circulated among several governments and believed by everyone who received the information. As a result, we felt there was a solid justification for going to war in Iraq. Both Democrats and Republicans alike saw the same intelligence and voted for the war.

Russert: But knowing what you know now, that there absolutely were no WMDs, would you have supported the President's decision to go to war in Iraq?

Rice: Tim, the administration was given information that was credible at the time and we were forced to make a decision...would we allow Sadam to continue to gather WMDs and hope that this brutal dictator would not use them, as he had in the past, or would we take action against a dictator who had consistently defied U.N. resolution after resolution in the hopes of stopping him before he posed a greater danger to his own people or the U.S. The choice to take the war to the enemy seemed obvious.

Russert: But Madam Secretary (full of sarcasm) there were no weapons of mass destruction. Would you still support the decision of this administration to go to war?

Rice: Well actually Tim, there were WMDs found. Perhaps they were not found in the quantities that our intelligence had indicated, but they were there in Iraq. There is also evidence that they may have been hidden or moved out of the country just prior to the U.S. invasion, so yes, I stand behind my decision, as does the President.

Russert: But there were no WMDs. Sadam didn't have stock-piles of WMDs. He had not been gathering WMDs. Knowing this, would you still have supported the administration's disastrous decision to go into a pre-emptive war with a country that had no ties with the War on Terror?

Rice: Yes, Tim, as I said before, I would still support this war, based on the intelligence we had at the time, and even now, Iraq has a much brighter future without Sadam Hussein at the helm. The Iraqi people now have a chance at freedom. Women can now vote. Children can now get an education...

Russert: But we entered into this supposed "War on Terror" with a country that had no ties to terror. What has Iraq ever done to us? Why didn't we invade Iran instead? Why didn't we try diplomacy first? Why did the President and this administration rush into a war based on faulty intelligence?

Rice: Tim, as I said before, we acted on the intelligence we had at the time, which was deemed by many, many others on both sides of the political aisle to be credible. WMDs were found and we deposed the region of a terrible dictator who did support terrorism. We had tried diplomacy through at least 17 different U.N. resolutions and sanctions, all of which Sadam ignored. We had no other option.

Russert: But the intelligence was faulty. There were no WMDs and now we are stuck in a quagmire, the likes of which have not been seen since Vietnam. Now let's talk with democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. Sen. Biden, based upon what we now know for a fact, that Iraq and Sadam did not have weapons of mass destruction, would you still vote for this pre-emptive war in Iraq?

Biden: Absolutely not, Tim. I believe this administration acted foolishly and did not want to listen to any critics of the plan for war. They wanted to get rid of Sadam Hussein and they used the guise of WMDs to get the American people and it's representatives in Congress behind the plan. They used faulty intelligence to make the situation appear far worse than it was and of course we believed the intelligence because we did not believe that the White House would lead us astray, yet now here we are 5 years later, stuck in a terrible situation in Iraq, with our brave young men and women in uniform dying by the thousands, because of a personal vendetta. This situation makes me sick. Of course if I had known that the intelligence was false and that there was no real plan for the war and that the situation would be this out of control, I would not have voted for the war. In fact, I think we should bring our troops home as soon as possible. This is getting ridiculous.

(Meanwhile, Condi's head explodes at the absurdity of it all.)

Well, I think you get the idea. The guests are different each week, but the topic and the questions are almost identical. Russert must not have any new ideas. Or maybe he's just stuck on stupid. That gets my vote.