An Unsurprising "October Surprise"

No one should be surprised if the Bush-Cheney junta breaks out of this good-cop/bad-cop routine and attacks Iran just in time to perturb the November elections:

The [Israeli] official claimed that a senior member of the president’s entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for. [bad cops]

However, the official continued, “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being. [good cops]

Whatever one might think of news stories sourced to unnamed "senior officials," I hope everyone is past assuming this administration acts in good faith. Yes, they most certainly are capable of this; yes, they do wield foreign policy, up to and including war, as a blunt weapon of politics; yes, they are this crass. We have yet to see the bottom of their shamelessness.

crossposted at faith in honest doubt