Download Download (h/t Heather)

Another day, another set of scandals for the Bush Administration. Our first scandal comes from Heraldo Muñoz, Chile's Ambassador to the United Nations, who in an upcoming book, recounts how much pressure was put on other nations by the Bush administration to join the "Coalition of the Harassed Willing" in the run up to the invasion of Iraq:

In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war.

Muñoz claimed that it got so bad that they took to meeting at the German Embassy to avoid being spied upon by U.S. officials. Sounds like the John Bolton School of Diplomacy, doesn't it?

Next up is Bush's Brain himself, Karl Rove, who, undeterred by a failed presidency by absolutely any meaningful measure, decides to reheat some tired old leftover talking points and plain old lies in an interview with Bill O'Reilly. (link takes you to Fox. Click only if you want to give them the hits)

O'REILLY: And here's what people say to me all the time: We don't understand, for all the blood and treasure spend, how this is making us safer - how exactly our presence in Iraq is making us safer. They do not understand it, even five years after the action. So what say you?
ROVE: Well, remember, we removed, as you said, Saddam Hussein in 22 days. But then the enemy, the Al Qaeda extremists, decided to make the central battlefield in the global war on terror. This will be worth that if we win. If we win we will have dealt the enemy a huge blow in a battlefield they chose to confront us on.
And it will send a powerful message throughout the Islamic world. [..] Think about the creation of the democracy in the historic center of the Middle East with the third-largest oil reserves in the world.

And finally, because our military isn't stretched to the breaking point already, the American Enterprise Institute is recommending a "surge" in Afghanistan, headed up by that resident military expert, Fred Kagan , PNAC signatory and original architect of the Iraq "surge" as well as never having been in the military in his life. Quick note of advice to a deaf administration: listening to someone who has no experience in military matters except for what he's read in textbooks and who has been so very wrong on pretty much everything, does not merit any attention.