Via a Kos diary, I think this will be important. Among my friends is one Bush-backer who feels that no one else could have predicted the particular problems that are being faced in Iraq either. He feels that, since Bush couldn't have possibly predicted a Shia uprising, he really couldn't have planned for one. I don't know if the presence of realism in documents that Bush saw before the war will be enough to swing my bud, but I know that a lot of people are more apt to let Bush off the hook on the basis of "mistakes anyone could have made".

From where I sit, the whole idea is preposterous. Even if it was pure ignorance on Bush's part, surely plans could have been made based on worst case scenarios. Surely, a few extra months could have been spared to be sure of ourselves and to correct administration ignorance on points ranging from the existence of WMD to the likelihood of an insurgency. But there are others out there who honestly believe that Bush has been the victim of the same sort of mistakes that numerous other intelligence agencies and policy-makers fell to. There are others who sympathise with Bush on that score, who have bought into the meme that John Kerry lacks conviction, and who will vote for Bush in November.

Maybe, just maybe, between the debates and the publicization of the pre-war intelligence estimates that leave Bush without an excuse for not planning to occupy hell, a few more Bush leaners will start seeing things in a new light. We can only hope.