President Bush rarely holds news conferences -- his July 30th news conference was only the ninth he has held during his thirty months in office (compared to Bush Sr.'s 61 and Clinton's 33 when they were thirty months into their terms). Given the rare occasion, the media should have challenged the President on intelligence relating to the Iraq war, the White House's role in manipulating the intelligence, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz's recent statement that the United States must act based on "murky intelligence" in the post-9/11 world. Wolfowitz's statement suggests that the administration has no qualms about pursuing another war on the basis of flimsy or falsified intelligence. The media seems to have forgotten about the lies and the administration seems ready to do it all again. Unless of course we do not let them get away with it.

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