Clark has it right.

Bush is getting so much credit for Saddam’s capture–predictable, as we tend to react generally to events–but there is a whole backstory that people are missing here, as evident as it may be.

Think about it this way. You work for an auto manufacturer. Your boss tells you, “in order to keep this company alive, we need the best steel for the best price. I want you to go out there and land the best deal you can.” So out you go, you stake out the market, you put in your bids, you try your best–but you come up empty. You need to succeed somehow. Though the best thing would be to work harder, improve your contacts, and strive even more to get that deal, instead you let it slide, and go after the best tin deal you can put together. And even that’s hard for you–you sweat, you try, you spend most of the company’s money, you even sacrifice your firm’s good name in the industry. And at the end, you get the deal, meager as it may be, useless at it might wind up being for the company. But you ride back in the factory gates on a big pile of tin, waving the contract like a trophy. You get cheers from the workers, because you look like you did the job.

That’s where Bush is right now. Saddam is the contract he’s waving around. (Though Bush doesn’t even have the pile of tin tied down yet, just the vague hope it will come in.)

However, it is not long before the boss walks up, figures out it’s tin, and shouts, “I told you to buy steel!”

Someone needs to shout this at Bush right about now. Clark is doing it, though perhaps not many are hearing it. He notes that Saddam was not the goal, bin Laden and al Qaeda were. But Bush could not deliver. “Instead, he executed a bait-and-switch. He took the priority off Osama bin Laden. He shifted the spotlight onto Saddam Hussein.”

So we have our tin-pot dictator. Too bad it won’t build us any cars. The question is, will the people be able to tell tin from steel amongst all the hoopla?