[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

If this singular piece of damning evidence is all it takes to convince the public, then you're right. As I said, I'm still curious to see what will happen and at this point I won't make any predictions.

deep down inside, i think the public knows that the president has lied to them. whether the public wants to confront this particular demon is the question.

as for that singular piece of damning evidence, i'm not sure which you are referring to - there are so many. there is, of course, the Downing St. Minutes. then there is the document published in today's London Times (published by Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, for you fans of the liberal media myth):

The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.

then there is the testimony of Richard Clarke:

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

or Paul O'Neil:

According to O'Neil, it was at the very first National Security Council meeting that the Bush administration expressed a desire to remove Saddam Hussein from office.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neil, who adds that going after Saddam was a high priority 10 days after the inauguration -- eight months before Sept. 11.

or the President's own words, dated March 2002:

Two months ago, a group of Republican and Democratic Senators went to the White House to meet with Condoleezza Rice, the President's National Security Adviser. Bush was not scheduled to attend but poked his head in anyway — and soon turned the discussion to Iraq. The President has strong feelings about Saddam Hussein (you might too if the man had tried to assassinate your father, which Saddam attempted to do when former President George Bush visited Kuwait in 1993) and did not try to hide them. He showed little interest in debating what to do about Saddam. Instead, he became notably animated, according to one person in the room, used a vulgar epithet to refer to Saddam and concluded with four words that left no one in doubt about Bush's intentions: "We're taking him out."

or how about Cheneys words, also from March 2002?

Dick Cheney carried the same message to Capitol Hill in late March. The Vice President dropped by a Senate Republican policy lunch soon after his 10-day tour of the Middle East — the one meant to drum up support for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. Before he spoke, he said no one should repeat what he said, and Senators and staff members promptly put down their pens and pencils. Then he gave them some surprising news. The question was no longer if the U.S. would attack Iraq, he said. The only question was when.

...and there is so much more. Hearings start next week - let's see if Michigan Congressman John Conyers is smart enough to put together all of the pieces.