Think I Was Too Harsh in Monday’s Column?

Speaking of the “capture” theory, Daniel McCarthy sends in this item from the print version of National Review, Jan. 26 issue:

Former Marine Corps general Anthony C. Zinni is a critic of the Iraq war.
Saddam Hussein “was contained,” Zinni told the Washington Post in a recent
interview. “He had a deteriorated military. He wasn’t a threat to the
region.” That is a view – a wrong one. But Zinni, who thinks it both right
and obvious, must then explain why the Bush administration does not espouse
it. “The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the
neocons who didn’t understand the region . . . Somehow, the neocons captured
the president. They captured the vice president.” But George W. Bush
identified Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, as a dangerous rogue state
when he was campaigning for office in 1999 (then he thought their missile
programs would be threats). So why does Zinni think Bush was “captured”?
Could it be because Bush and Cheney are Chr******s, while neocons are J**s?
Is Zinni d**b, or worse?