Editors Note: Today we offer our first guest post from GH:

"We knew the dictator had a history of using weapons of mass destruction, a long record of aggression and hatred for America.  He was listed by Republican and Democrat administrations as a state sponsor of terrorists.  There was a risk -- a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons, or materials, or information to terrorist networks.  In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."

A close look at this section of Bush's "significant" speech today supports my hunch: Bush has made a subtle, yet significant, departure from his justification for invading Iraq.

From now on (or until Bush slides further in the polls and Rove dreams up an October surprise), Bush's "my-story-and-I'm-sticking-to-it" will be not that Saddam Hussein posed an "imminent threat" to the U.S., but rather a "potential" threat.  But not a threat in the sense that Colin Powell argued to the United Nations - that Saddam Hussein was actively developing nuclear weapons - but rather a threat in the sense that Saddam might "pass information to terrorist networks."

So now we have it: the justification for a $200 billion quagmire with over 1,000 U.S. soldiers killed, thousands more permanently disfigured, and God knows how many Iraqi deaths?  Because Saddam might let terrorists know the Bush family's fondness for pork rinds.

By softening the justification for the war, Bush can claim that he is doing everything in his power to protect America and its citizens.  No WMDs and no imminent potential for developing WMDs?  No problem.  The risk was still too great because Saddam is an EVIL DOER and therefore he had the potential to DO MORE EVIL at some mythical point in the future if we hadn't stopped him.  Shoddy intelligence?  Perhaps, but the nature of intelligence gathering is an art form, not a science - there are no certainties.  All we can do is act upon a hunch.  And even if the intelligence was wrong, we still had the MORAL AUTHORITY to go to war preemptively because Saddam is an EVIL DOER and he had the potential to DO MORE EVIL at some mythical point in the future if we hadn't stopped him.  Not enough troops?  We had a sufficient number of troops to topple the regime.  I know we had a sufficient number of troops to topple the regime because we succeeded in toppling the regime.  In fact, we toppled the regime so swiftly that we didn't have time to add more troops to secure Iraq and its borders and to provide paramilitary support for the new regime that the brave Iraqi people will have the privilege of electing in January.  But no matter, we're adding more troops now, even though we've always had a sufficient number of troops to get the job done.

Got that?

So Rob, your hunch was right, but Bush has not taken a page out of the playbook of William Jefferson Clinton.  It’s more like a page from Orwell: American leaders have the moral authority to do as they please because Americans are morally superior to everyone else.  Thus, there is no need to justify any action taken by American leaders, because any action will always be right.

Or in Orwellian prose: Four legs good, two legs bad.