I was a bit taken aback by the wording of the
Reuters story on MSNBC about Ahmad Chalabi's desire to appear jointly before Congress with CIA head George Tenet:
Ahmad Chalabi, once a favored Iraqi exile of the Bush administration, on Sunday denied accusations that he passed along U.S. secrets to Iran and challenged the CIA director to a duel before Congress.
A duel! Gadzooks! A little swordplay, or pistols at 50 paces. How charming, how retro, and yes, how romantic. And perfectly in keeping with my romance novel theory of what is behind the Chalabi contretemps: Dubya and Condi Rice are enjoying a forbidden love affair, as evidenced by Condi's slip of the tongue reference to Bush as her 'husband.' Laura finds out and retaliates by starting her own torrid affair with that hunky Iraqi Chalabi, going so far as to brazenly invite him to join her at the State of the Union address. Bush in turn retaliates by bringing all the governmental power at his disposal to destroy his cuckolding rival.
And thus, the war that began as an Oedipal drama now becomes a romantic triangle... ;)