Frank Rich Hammers White House

Beat the NYT firewall here. $Q: So when you watch the president stand there with a straight face and say, "We do not torture" - a full year and a half after the first photos from Abu Ghraib - you have to wonder how we arrived at this ludicrous moment. The answer is not complicated. When people in power get away with telling bigger and bigger lies, they naturally think they can keep getting away with it. And for a long time, Mr. Bush and his cronies did. Not anymore. But there's much more, all of it required reading. The RNC would have to clone a hundred Mehlmans to even begin to knock down the facts woven into his powerful argument. Rich slams the door in disgust with the final line: The Qaeda suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman on 11/9, like the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London before them, speak louder than anything else of the price we are paying for the lies that diverted us from the war against the suicide bombers of 9/11 to the war in Iraq. Go get 'em Frank.