Post hoc ergo procter hoc

That's my favorite logical fallacy. I must admit my source was an episode of The West Wing, but I never cease to find people using it. The literal translation - after this therefore because of this - is probably posted in every office in the White House.

We've had another litany of deflection, half-truths, mis-direction and - I haven't been looking very hard but I'm sure I could come up with some - bald faced lies.

The latest in the series - Bush gives a speech crediting intelligence for saving a building in LA from a terrorist plane attack. The message, of course, is to leave him alone and let him illegally wiretap any damn person he wants to. If you object, you obviously want Americans to die horrible deaths at the hands of our sworn enemy - an enemy you help every time you ask me to follow the law.

Of course, if the NSA program that has Bush in hot water had actually been the source of this intelligence, we would have heard about it in massive waves the day after the NY Times story broke. But it's not, so the best they can do is resort to the usual rhetorical trickery and hope the masses only read the headlines.

Don't buy it, not for one second. Every morning I get out of bed and every morning the sun rises. Damn, I'm good.