Delusional columnists

Two columns in Sunday’s Express-News show people in a delusional state of mind - one from the right, and one from the left.

First we have conservative Jonathan Gurwitz who is still desperately trying to justify his support for the invasion of Iraq in light of the fact that the imminent threat from the Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out to be a hoax perpetrated partly by Hussein himself and partly by his enemies.
Now Gurwitz is trying to use the latest report on the U.N.’s oil-for-food scandal to prop up the dead horse notion that Saddam Hussein was a threat to anyone outside of his own country.

Saddam was able to skim ($12 billion) from the program and divert (it) for largely military purposes. Gurwitz announces breathlessly.

The fact that Hussein and his Baathist regime were corrupt shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone.
And Hussein obviously didn’t do a very good job of building up him military with that money based on what we saw when we invaded. Hussein’s military folded almost immediately and months of fruitless searching afterwards revealed no evidence of any kind of WMD program that we did not already know about and have under wraps via U.N. inspections.
The money that Hussein skimmed most likely went into his pocket and to prop up his corrupt government which was based largely on bribery and theft. Gurwitz’ contention that Hussein was getting stronger at the time that we invaded is flatly contradicted by the Iraq Survey Team which concluded that Hussein’s military might had been steadily deteriorating since the end of Gulf War I.

Next, we have liberal Susan Ives with a column that seems like it was intended to confirm every negative stereotype against liberals that I have ever tried to knock down. How embarrassing.
Ives thinks we need to have another cabinet level position in our government - to the tune of about $8 billion annually - to promote “peace and nonviolence.”

A Department of Peace would add more tools to the president's toolbox., Ives says.

Arghhh! I don’t even want to hear all the stupid jokes about people standing around in a circle singing “Kumbaya.” Please, just spare me that. This is the stupidest idea I think I have ever heard from folks on my side of the fence.
First off, we already have a cabinet level department that is supposed to promote peace and non-violence. It’s called the State Department. That’s what they do. They negotiate and barter and design peace accords and all that other diplomatic stuff short of waging wars. If the State Department is not doing a good job at that lately its because we have lousy leadership at the top.
A Department of Peace and Nonviolence like Ives wants would be totally redundant. And furthermore, what good would it do to have a department like that if Bush is still going to be the one appointing the people to run it? Can you imagine?
I can see it now. Bush’s first appointee to be the new Secretary of Peace and Non-violence would be someone like B-1 Bob Dornan.