Bush The Decider Is Also Bush The Aider and Comforter

So, former U.S. spy Mike Scheuer has confirmed that Bush deliberately failed to kill terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, even though his administration had many chances to do so during the run-up to the Iraq catastrophe. Read about it here.

Kevin Drum asks the right question:

So why wasn't Bush willing to hit Zarqawi, a known al-Qaeda terrorist in a known location? Scheuer says he was told it was because Bush was afraid of annoying the French — a theory that seems a bit of a stretch, non? Others believe it was because Zarqawi was politically convenient: having him alive allowed Bush to pretend that Saddam was "harboring terrorists," thus providing useful ammunition for the war.

Whichever it is, we now have a credible source telling us on the record that the Zarqawi story is true. We could have gotten him, but we chose not to. Perhaps someone will start off Tony Snow's White House career on the right foot by asking him about it on Monday.