The real shadow government -- the one that hides in plain sight and is made up of current and former Defense Policy Board honchos, not the one we were worried about last year, which was probably just made up of midlevel bureaucrats -- has reared its ugly head again: Earlier this week it was Newt Gingrich sniping at the State Department; now it's Richard Perle yet again holding forth as if he's the secretary of state, defense secretary, national security adviser and commander-in-chief all rolled into one:

Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, a key architect of the U.S.-led drive to topple Saddam Hussein, was quoted on Friday as saying Washington would pursue other states in its crackdown on global terrorism.

"The military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are part of efforts to fight against terrorism," Perle told the French newspaper Les Echos.

"We are not going to stop there. We shall continue to fight against countries who harbor terrorists and develop weapons of mass destruction."...

"We"? Excuse me, Richard, you don't work for the government anymore.

Do you?