of course you realize, this means war

By Todd Stadler · Tuesday, March 11, 2003 2:34am

Conflicted as I am about the Real Soon Now war, I've resorted to picking at Ari Fleischer's answers to bide my time until the bombs drop.

From yesterday's White House press briefing:

Q: Ari, you've said today that the United Nations Security Council doesn't have a monopoly on the organization of international bodies. ... I'm wondering where a coalition outside of [the U.N.] would derive its legitimacy from in the international conscience?

MR. FLEISCHER: It would derive its legitimacy from, first of all, the legality is of course, as I said, expressed in resolution 678 of the United Nations resolutions.

Oh, I get it. If we decide that the UN is irrelevant because of its failure to act, our new, better club will derive its authority from the resolution passed by the now-totally-lame UN. Okay.

MR. FLEISCHER: It's also expressed in the Constitution of the United States of America ...

I guess he's referring to the part in section 8 where it says "The Congress shall have power ... to declare war", but that sure seems to say that only Congress can declare war, not the president.

MR. FLEISCHER: It also is derived from the will of the world to disarm Saddam Hussein ...

So even if we can't convince the world to disarm Saddam, much less convince the handful of countries in the Security Council, our actions are still the result of the will of the world.

"Baby, I'm doing this for you." "I don't want it like that." "Shut up! I said I'm doing it for you!"