The latest Bush scandal is something of a bombshell. A very good and highly regarded investigative journalist who used to write for the conservative Wall Street Journal has recently published a book alleging that the Bush administration "ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein. Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war. The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

This story has been going around the blogosphere like wildfire. Thank God for the blogosphere, because the regular media is not focusing on this story at all. I'm still waiting for the New York Times to cover the story. Maybe they think it's old news because everyone knows that Bush was full of it on Iraq and wanted war so badly that he would do anything to justify it,and we're all just sick and tired of these kinds of stories.

Well, I'm not sick and tired of these stories. They represent just another layer of evidence showing that the American people were bamboozled for years about the so-called Iraqi threat. The best part is the Bush administration's response to this story:

The White House flatly denied Suskind’s account. Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, told Politico: “The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd.”

The White House plans to push back hard. Fratto added: "Ron Suskind makes a living from gutter journalism. He is about selling books and making wild allegations that no one can verify, including the numerous bipartisan commissions that have reported on pre-war intelligence."

Gutter journalism? Then call me a fan of gutter journalism.