HMMM.... Grover Norquist may be a "mean-spirited, humorless, dishonest little creep ... an embarrassing anomaly, the leering, drunken uncle everyone else wishes would stay home," but he's not dumb. Which makes this Newsweek report kinda interesting, I think:

On Tuesday, GOP activist Grover Norquist, a top ally of the White House, suggested it was a political mistake for the administration to attack Democrats who claim Bush misled them on pre-war intelligence. "I was not an advocate of, or a fan of this idea of having a conversation about who hit who first in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq," Norquist said. "A debate on where you can go from here, Bush can do fine on. A debate on how we got into this, even if you win, what do you win?"

Now, obviously, you can't take anything Norquist says at face value. (Actually, what he's saying in this instance doesn't even make sense at face value. A president who's currently polling under 50% on basic believability has nothing to gain by winning a big national debate on the very subject that's driving those numbers into the toilet? Please.) So the question is, what's Norquist really saying? And the most likely answer would seem to be that he's examined the relevant data and reached the conclusion that they can't win a debate on "how we got into this."

Like I said, kinda interesting, no?

POSTSCRIPT: Oh, and one more thing. Isn't the simple fact that Norquist doesn't appear to be overly concerned about getting f'ed like he's never been f'ed before for publicly criticizing the Rove political operation a noteworthy development in and of itself? As one of the greats might say at this point...

Developing...