ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE ME OR YOUR LYING EYES?

Nothing we didn't know already, but it is nice to see a gigantic New York Times story lay out how the Bush Administration willfully distorted the evidence for WMD in the rush to go to war in Iraq. Even if CBS was bullied into shelving their investigation of WMD, this should set the agenda for the week (and John Edwards's talking points for his across-the-table meeting with Dick Cheney):

Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, an examination by The New York Times has found. They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of nuclear experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public.

One result was a largely one-sided presentation to the public that did not convey the depth of evidence and argument against the administration's most tangible proof of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq.

The report goes on to deliver a meticulous discussion of how the aluminum tubes Bush & Rice claimed might produce a mushroom cloud were always in doubt. The language of the report is restrained, but implicates Dick Cheney as making the most questionable decisions about valuing discredited intelligence. (The Times also mildly -- without mentioning Judith Miller's name -- chastises itself several times for not adequately reporting on the story two years ago.)

Kerry and Edwards get called on their votes for the war, but this is a damning way to start Dick Cheney's week.