What Tristero said:

Making Sure It Doesn't Happen Again

The end of a blistering, spot-on Times Editorial

... [Bush's] only real plan is to confuse enough Americans and cow enough members of Congress to let him muddle along and saddle his successor with this war that should never have been started.

Yes. And the Times can do its small part to ensure that the US doesn't repeat the mistake of wars "that should never have been started."  

They can terminate David Brooks's and and Thomas Friedman's contracts, effective today, and hire as replacements Jessica Tuchman Mathews and Barbara Ehrenreich. They should fire Michael Gordon for his credulous and intellectually disengaged regurgitation of Pentagon statistics and assertions and they should let Elizabeth Bumiller go for her utterly worthless, utterly biased I-use-the-term-loosely reporting. They can also retire the thoroughly misleading references to Al Qaeda in Iraq that grossly distort the situation and only serve the propaganda interests of the Bush administration.

Most importantly, and also most unlikely, they should call for the impeachment and removal from office of George Bush, Dick Cheney and the entire Bush cabinet. There isn't enough paper in the world to list the reasons why they should go - and go now. And there are no good reasons for them to stay a moment longer.

Amen. But let's go further. Remember the Times' non-apology of 5/26/04 for its front page lies written by Judity Miller and Michael Gordon? It concluded:

We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight.

Has anyone seen the "aggressive reporting" from the Times on the pre-war WMD lies? Has the Times ever gotten to the bottom of the Niger uranium hoax, the aluminum tube lies, and all the other pre-war lies? Has the Times ever named those who manufactured those lies? Has the Times ever demanded accountability for those who manufactured those lies?

The answer to all of those questions is NO.

It is a permanent shame of the Times that it "catapulted the propaganda," but when it got caught, it never identified its manufacturers or demanded their accountability - despite its explicit promise to do so.