THE SMOKING GUN MAY COME IN THE FORM OF A ... BRIBE

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for Saddam Hussein's, uh, bribery?

Vice President Dick Cheney brushed aside the central findings of chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer - that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either - while Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions," Bush said as he prepared to fly to campaign events in Wisconsin. "He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away."

While this may be good enough for the Glenn Reynolds' of the world, something tells me this won't fly with the Lila Lipscombs of the world.

And something tells me Cheney ain't exactly the right guy to make the sanction argument. Good thing he left it to Dubya.

Eye on the ball: NO WEAPONS, guys. Bush did not show Congress the evidence the administration had which casted doubt on the WMD argument, so you can't argue that Congress (or Kerry) saw exactly what Bush saw.

And if bribery is a justification for war, can we please bomb the fuck out of Tom Delay?