Maureen Dowd on an Administration where only lies are valued.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: World of Hurt: "But who knows what the effect will be of the additional 'blatantly sadistic and inhuman' photos that Mr. Rumsfeld warned of? Or the videos he said he still had not screened?

Dick Cheney will not cut loose his old mentor from the Nixon and Ford years unless things get more dire.

After all, George Tenet is still running the C.I.A. after the biggest intelligence failures since some Trojan ignored Cassandra's chatter and said, 'Roll the horse in.' Colin Powell is still around after trash-talking to Bob Woodward about his catfights with the Bushworld 'Mean Girls' — Rummy, Cheney, Wolfie and Doug Feith. The vice president still rules after promoting a smashmouth foreign policy that is more Jack Palance than Shane. And the president still edges out John Kerry in polls, even though Mr. Bush observed with no irony to Al Arabiya TV: 'Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers.'

The only people who have been pushed aside in this administration are the truth tellers who warned about policies on taxes (Paul O'Neill); war costs (Larry Lindsey); occupation troop levels (Gen. Eric Shinseki); and how Iraq would divert from catching the ubiquitous Osama (Richard Clarke).

Even if the secretary survives, the Rummy Doctrine — using underwhelming force to achieve overwhelming goals — is discredited. Jack Murtha, a Democratic hawk and Vietnam vet, says 'the direction's got to be changed or it's unwinnable,' and Lt. Gen. William Odom, retired, told Ted Koppel that Iraq was headed toward becoming an Al Qaeda haven and Iranian ally.

By the end, Rummy was channeling Jack Nicholson's Col. Jessup, who lashed out at the snotty weenies questioning him while they sleep 'under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it.'"