Who is Scooter Libby?Where is Hillary Clinton?

The Center for American Progress has a whole section of "Who is" documents relating to the Bush administration. Scooter Libby's profile caught my attention, but the rest are worth skimming.

Also culled from today's news was the cover story from The New York Observer, entitled "While We Were Sleeping" about why Iraq has received so little coverage in the mainstream press. Inability to travel freely and safely through the country is one excuse - the fact that the war is a kind of dull entertainment option is another.

Also in the Observer, an interesting piece on Hillary Clinton's stand on the war and her vote on October 10, 2002.

She also said at the time, and has maintained since then, that she was voting not for war, but to give the President leverage to force tough weapons inspections.

"I had thought that we would let the inspectors continue their work, and we might very well have found out what we later discovered, which is that they did not have weapons of mass destruction,” she said in Westchester. “But, unfortunately, the President, the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense did not want the inspectors to finish their job.”

I sympathize with Mrs. Clinton on some level, but what made her think that the Bush Administration would allow inspections to continue? Surely, Hans Blix was surprised they had no interest in continuing inspections, as I've noted previously. But how is it possible that Hilary Clinton (of all people) was unaware of the dirty tricks of the Bush Administration and the real situation in Iraq? I find it implausible to believe that she thought they would use the power of force responsibly.

Did she figure that she'd look like a hard-liner if she voted yes? And that if the President was wrong they could triumph in the 2008 election? Seems like a lot of "ifs" - and a lot of lives lost - just to gain the nomination and perhaps the White House.

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