Brooks continues to drive me crazy. I liked him better when I knew he was writing for the Wall Street Journal, and being a conservative on Brooks and Shields on McNeill-Lehrer (or whatever they're calling it this year).

Actually, it isn't Brooks per se, it is the lack of active opposition to some of the things he says. It is, I guess, the Eric Alterman claim, What Liberal Media?

It is that Mark Shields is so much older than Brooks on the television screen, with that bad wig and those awful, awful glasses, and that he yields too easily.

And he's not alone.

I do not step back from my pro-war stance. I think, and if you read my early blog columns, or those of you who knew my position from before the blog, I have been pretty clear that Sadman was sitting on too much American oil, and he had to go. However, that is not the way the Bushies advertised the war. They advertised the war on WMDs --- a lie on par with all the great lies in history.

Now there are two lies being told. One, is that the war was waged to get rid of the evil dictator who was destroying his own people. Two, is that W said that all along.

I'll let one pass for now. It is two that sticks in my craw. I am sure that in a 30-second segment of some 90-minute somewhere some Bushie said that Sadman was a bad man to his own people, but it was never a main cause for the war. Having Bushies claim that it was always front and center is a lawyer's trick, and it kills me that Shields doesn't call Brooks on it. And it will be used all the way up and down the line on campaign ads, etc.

It also sticks in my craw that the New York Times wastes good op-ed space on David Brooks. This week they also gave Rummy some space. I won't take up my good space to link it.