peck peck peck peck

So the White House is now admitting that the Niger uranium story is no longer operative (translation: it wasn't true). On top of this comes an interesting report that puts yet another nail in the Bush coffin if it proves to be true:

An intelligence consultant who was present at two White House briefings where the uranium report was discussed confirmed that the President was told the intelligence was questionable and that his national security advisors urged him not to include the claim in his State of the Union address. "The report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings." Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."

This story answers the question from skeptic who ask why Bush would include questionable intelligence in his SOTU speech if he knew it could be so easily disproven. The answer is that the man was so convinced of his own perfection that if he believes that the story is true then it must be true. Can we really trust the awesome power of the United States to the hands of a man whose ego is so large that he considers himself to be more knowledgeable on these matters than the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus? Update: It turns out the CHB story isn't true. See here for the retratcion.