I was on Hardball again with uber-hawk Frank Gaffney Jr., a onetime Reagan Pentagon official. The subject tonight: the possible prosecution in Spain of six past Bush officials--including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former undersecretary of defense Douglas Feith, former Justice Department official John Yoo, and David Addington, onetime counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney--for devising the legal justification for torture conducted at Guantanamo. Gaffney, of course, decried the Spanish action as an attack on US sovereignty. If I heard him right, he essentially argued that the United States need not abide by any international rules (or treaties) if they lead to any undue infringement of national sovereignty. And who gets to judge what makes for such an infringement? I think Gaffney would like that job.

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The North Koreans launch a missile that fails to place a satellite into orbit and what does former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, Jr. say? That this episodes indicates that the evildoers of North Korea could be planning to hit the United States with a super-duper secret electromagnetic pulse weapon that would throw America back into the Stone Age, that the U.S. ought to hit Kim Jong Il hard before such a catastrophe happens (whether an attack on North Korea triggers a major war in Asia or not), and that President Barack Obama is planning to "submit" to the Taliban and Muslim nations. Yes, that's what Gaffney said when he and I discussed--is that the right word?--the North Korean missile launch on Hardball on Monday night. What's the connection between an EMP sneak attack from North Korea and Obama surrendering to the Taliban? I'm not sure. But it's easier to show than to explain:

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Chris Matthews interviewed--make that, skewered--Ari Fleischer on Hardball, grilling him on George W. Bush's legacy: a lousy war in Iraq sold to the public with false information and a lousy economy. At the end of the long segment, Fleischer said

But after September 11, having been hit once, how could we take a chance that Saddam might not strike again?

Strike again? Was Fleischer pushing the canard that Saddam Hussein had been involved in the 9/11 attacks? Matthews was busy closing out the segment and didn't focus on this remark. But after watching the interview later, he decided this comment deserved attention.

Enter former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney and me. We were invited on Thursday's show to discuss Fleischer's comment and the claim--to which some neocons still cling--that Saddam was in cahoots with the 9/11 mass-murderers. The 9/11 commission said there was no link between Saddam and 9/11, but, yes, Gaffney still contends that Saddam was behind al Qaeda's attack. His evidence? Gaffney cited circumstantial reports, a book by discredited neocon Douglas Feith, and, essentially, his own hunch. Here's what happened:

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Should the new Obama Administration dig through all the dark ugliness of the Bush-Cheney years--torture, renditions, the destruction of evidence, etc.--and start prosecuting former Bush officials, including the veep? I appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with hawk-of-all-hawks Frank Gaffney Jr. to discuss the matter.

By the way, if you haven't seen Stephen Hayes piece in which Cheney grouses about Bush not pardoning Scooter Libby, check it out. The article is a hoot. I encourage Hayes, Cheney's sympathetic chronicler-in-chief, to fuel more feuding between this out-of-power couple.