"If I were creating the world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would've started with lasers, eight o'clock, day one!"

Holy crap. I mean, I knew that Bush, Cheney, and the rest of those demons had extreme Power Lust, but I didn't realize that it was this advanced...

WASHINGTON - A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that wrongheaded ideas for the handling of foreign detainees arose from White House and Pentagon officials who argued that "the president of the United States is all-powerful" and the Geneva Conventions irrelevant.

All-powerful? All-powerful? Look, I'm not as educated on the subject of religion as The Green Knight, but I think I can safely say that the Christian faith states that God is all-powerful... and to claim that you are above God is... well, a sin.

Kind of an odd thing for a Jesus-lovin' President to think, wouldn't you say?

Not to mention a "Christian" Administration saying that the Geneva Conventions are "irrelevant." I can think of a certain Jewish carpenter that might disagree with you on that, Georgie-boy...

(Incidentally, isn't "all-powerful" kind of a bizarre thing to say? It just sounds so comic book supervillain to me...)

In an Associated Press interview, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson also said President Bush was "too aloof, too distant from the details" of postwar planning. Underlings exploited Bush's detachment and made poor decisions, Wilkerson said.

Of course. Because Deities need not concern themselves with the peccadilloes of mere mortals.

Wilkerson blamed Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and like-minded aides. He said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."

*Spit take*

Well, that was awesome. I like his use of the word "nefarious;" suddenly we're in moustache-twirling cartoon territory. Somehow, I don't find the idea of Cheney dressing up like Snidely Whiplash too difficult to believe.

On the question of detainees picked up in Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror, Wilkerson said Bush heard two sides of an impassioned argument within his administration. Abuse of prisoners, and even the deaths of some who had been interrogated in Afghanistan and elsewhere, have bruised the U.S. image abroad and undermined support for the Iraq war.

Cheney's office, Rumsfeld aides and others argued "that the president of the United States is all-powerful, that as commander in chief the president of the United States can do anything he damn well pleases," Wilkerson said.

Yes indeed, Bush does think he can do anything he damn well pleases. And he's been running the country with this mindset since day one. Could he possibly show any more contempt for the opinions, needs and safety of the American people?

On the other side were Powell, others at the State Department and top military brass, and occasionally Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, Wilkerson said.

Powell raised frequent and loud objections, his former aide said, once yelling into a telephone at Rumsfeld: "Donald, don't you understand what you are doing to our image?"

Condi actually stopped bootlicking long enough to voice the opinion that maybe violently torturing our prisoners might not be the best idea? Color me shocked.

Powell was widely regarded as a dove to Cheney's and Rumsfeld's hawks, but he made a forceful case for war before the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, a month before the invasion. At one point, he said Saddam possessed mobile labs to make weapons of mass destruction, but they have not been found.

Wilkerson said the CIA and other agencies allowed mishandled and bogus information to underpin that speech and the administration case for war.

He said he has almost, but not quite, concluded that Cheney and others in the administration deliberately ignored evidence of bad intelligence and looked only at what supported their case for war.

A newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document from February 2002 said that an al-Qaida military instructor was probably misleading his interrogators about training that the terror group's members received from Iraq on chemical, biological and radiological weapons. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi reportedly recanted his statements in January 2004.

A presidential intelligence commission also has dissected how spy agencies handled an Iraqi refugee who was a German intelligence source. Code-named Curveball, this man, a leading source on Iraq's purported mobile biological weapons labs, was found to be a fabricator and alcoholic.

But Bush and his Administration aren't interested in facts or evidence. They aren't interested in accurate intelligence or going to war for just reasons. They don't give a shit about sending American soldiers to die in the dust in their unarmored vehicles. They don't care about lying to the American people every goddamned day.

Because they have understanding.

Understanding of digital watches.

And soon they will have understanding of videocassette recorders and car telephones. And when they have understanding of them, they shall have understanding of computers. And when they have understanding of computers, Bush shall be the Supreme Being!

Update: See? That Green Knight is always one step ahead of me.

(Energy dome tip to TBogg. I believe that cross-posts are the future...)