Donald Rumsfeld, everyone’s favorite cranky plutocrat, told the Council on Foreign Relations there was no hard evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Queda . This statement was quickly repudiated by Rumsfeld saying he was “misunderstood.”

Yet, this goes to the heart of the matter on Iraq and on our ability to trust our president. Bloggers on this site, and in many other, simply rely on the administration as being the source of all that is true and good. However, our duty as reasonable citizens is to weigh the evidence and decide for ourselves whether or not a) al-Queda ever really had meaningful contact with Iraq, or if b) Iraq was ever a real threat to our security.

Why is it that we want to believe the president when he’s clearly found wanting?
Well, reassurance that you didn’t vote for a serial liar might be one part. Assurance that our intelligence agencies aren’t totally inept might be another.

Or maybe it’s because this administration has gone so far down the wrong path that its supporters cannot admit any sort of mistake or re-evaluation without completely abandoning their candidate?

My guess is that all this misinformation, all these broken promises and all these inaccuracies on behalf of this president are going to sink him as a candidate. And if he’s re-elected it will cripple America’s ability to actually deal with terrorism and make us much more unsafe.

I know the voters of America are smarter than that and will save our collective bacon.