corrente

Tucked away in Seth Ackerman and John Judis' article on the Administration enlisting the Pakistani military in its re-election campaign hunt for al-Qaida leaders, there is this little nugget:

The Bush administration has matched this public and private pressure with enticements and implicit threats. ...[Colin] Powell pointedly refused to criticize Musharraf for pardoning nuclear physicist A.Q. Khan--who, the previous month, had admitted exporting nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya--declaring Khan's transgressions an "internal" Pakistani issue.

So, for those keeping score: first Bush let al-Qaida's leadership escape from Tora Bora rather than divert military assets from attacking Iraq, then spared Abu Musab Zarqawi so we could falsely link Saddam to al-Qaida as a pretext for attacking Iraq, and gives a pass to a country that actively participates in the market for nuclear terrorism so we can catch the al-Qaida leadership we let get away 2 1/2 years ago. Meanwhile New Yorkers and Californians get the least homeland security funding per capita, Montanans the most.

Maybe someone with experience in NCAA playoffs could help, but from where I sit the rankings going into the Self-Preservation Semifinals seem to be something like this:
1. Bush and cronies
2. Rogue nuclear states
3. al-Qaida
4. US citizens
(5. Saddam)

So this is what they meant by "moral clarity."

Lambert has more.