Byrd's Fine Feathers

Sen. Byrd yesterday (PDF):

Aesop once told the story of a jaybird that ventured into a yard where peacocks used to walk. There the jay found a number of feathers fallen from the majestic birds when they had last molted. He tied them all to his tail and strutted toward the peacocks. His cheat was quickly discovered, and the peacocks harassed the imposter until all his borrowed plumes had fallen away. When the jay could do no more than return to his own kind, having watched him from afar, they were equally affronted by the jay's actions.

The moral of the story, said Aesop, is that it takes more than just fine feathers to make fine birds.

It is an age-old lesson that the Congress should hold in its mind as we consider how best to investigate the distorted and misleading intelligence that the administration used to build its case for war in Iraq.

On February 6, the President announced the creation of his own commission to investigate our intelligence agencies to find out, in the words of Dr. David Kay, why we were almost all wrong about the administration's prewar claims of huge Iraqi stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. If Congress is serious about getting to the bottom of this apparent intelligence failure and the administration's rush to war, we must realize that once stripped of its dazzling plumage, the White House proposal for its own so-called independent commission is a real, honest to goodness turkey.

Uh-oh, preznit no give Byrd turkee...

ntodd

PS--If you enjoy listening to Byrd's speeches, as I do, he's got some audio clips on his website (RA, MP3).  ¶ 12:19 PM