We are told the best offense is a good defense, and did not the Bucs prove it this past weekend? Now here we are looking at going after Iraq in an offensive posture as if waiting on Hussein to ram the infield with illegal plays were totally out of the question.
   Instead of waiting for the illegal plays, we're anticipating them. Which is fine so long as we don't act before the plays are actually fielded. In other words, how often is a team penalized for what they might do, or for what the referee might call? Yet this is the absurdity of "preemptive warfare," which is just doublespeak fro the call "foul!"
   Americans believe in fair play. While we may not like it in the world of politics that dictators as presidents may have equal gravity in the realm of power, the fact is unless one of the many 'bad guys' directly attacks our interests (or our country), we leave them alone. Let them attack us and we will defend ourselves, but only then!
   Since 9/11, those who say they see no point in rushing into war are called "libruls." Guess what? This is not a liberal or a conservative position, rather, it is a human impulse with a view for honor and fair play. In fact, many pacifists found themselves sympathetic to those who promised to retaliate following the attack on American soil. Going after whoever enlisted the hijacker-jet Kamikazes would serve not only as way to deter future attacks, but actually accomplish justice, i.e. a just war.
   But while Al-Quaeda was targeted as Bin Laden admitted culpability, Bush was already adding the name of Hussein as a footnote to "the war on terrorism." At this juncture he and his boys could create a pretext to attack Iraq simply through associating Hussein with the attack on America, and then, through a constant barrage of misinformation, exploit our fears. It is as if the sport's anchor right in the middle of the Super bowl said, "By the way, everyone, Rich Gannon of the Raiders is on steroids!"   
   The administration has put out so many unsubstantiated rumors about Hussein on a daily basis, against even the professional's advice at the CIA, how are we to know if the latest "intelligence" is true? Meanwhile, because of this constant rhetoric of war, investigative journalism has all but surrendered matters such as Cheney's association with such corporate wonders as Enron, Halliburton and Harken. How are we then to know what is truth, or propaganda? How do we know Rumsfeld isn't jerking Hussein's helmet?
   The double whammy is this: conservatives, forever speaking of the liberal media in accusative tones, have only the media to thank for the smoke! CNN is hot on the war coverage with its Showdown with Iraq segments. Does this sound like journalism questioning the rationale of an invasion, or is it more like the sound of Super Bowl Sunday coverage?
  Is the 'war' coverage fair? What about the president's obsessive war rhetoric, is it fair play? If we'd seen these sort of shenanigans at the Super Bowl without the right of replay and bad calls made into game strategy, who would put up with it? At that point, we might as well change the venue of the Super Bowl to Iraq.