Inquirer Watch Part 2

Dick Polman, political analyst that he is, is caught stretching the truth on the front page of today's paper:

The Bush administration's rationale for war is now officially on trial.

Ostensibly, the indictment of Vice President Cheney's closest aide is about lying under oath and obstructing a federal probe. But the prosecution of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who resigned Friday, must be viewed in the broader political context.

This case is about the credibility of the war architects who pushed to invade Iraq while assailing dissenters who questioned the evidence.

Wrong. Libby is accused of lying to a grand jury about his conversations, it had nothing to do with the war rationale. The myriad reasons given for war included the potential for Saddam to acquire and use WMD. That was not the sole reason war going to war.

This is so tedious; the "dissenters" whom Polman refers to were the very same people who used WMD to push the case for launching cruise missiles into Baghdad during the impeachment hearings. That argument lost its currency years ago.

The Inquirer has had Polman on the cover alot lately, constantly hammering the war and war supporters. At the very least, the Inqy should be credited with labeling Polman's pieces "analysis". In the NY Times, it would just be news reporting.