Glenn Reynolds says

THE SADDAM / AL QAEDA LINK: Why are so many anxious to deny it? Perhaps because having missed it for so long would be embarrassing:

Someone teaching a rhetoric class could probably mine Instapundit for examples of logical fallacies. He seems especially prone to begging the question, ambiguity and (as in this case) attacking the motive.

Incidentally, the reason (rather than the motive) for denying a Saddam/Al Qaeda link till now was lack of evidence. If the article Glenn links to offers new evidence (and it’s not very encouraging to have to depend on This is London for your hard data, as opposed to, say, the White House), then that’ll be a reason for people to change their minds. But you don’t have to search for bad motives to explain why people didn’t (or don’t) believe there’s a connection there. Besides, not wanting to believe something until there’s good evidence for it is a good motive, not an embarrassing one.