No, Chuck, you're losing it

Charles Krauthammer and Teddy Kennedy aren't getting along lately. Last Friday, Krauthammer, the conservative pundit, published a self-righteous piece in The Washington Post about Kennedy's recent condemnation of the Iraq debacle. Specifically, he took issue with Kennedy's comments from the previous week. "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud," Kennedy said on the Senate floor on Sept. 18.\nKrauthammer's classy response was titled "Ted Kennedy, Losing It." He furthers the cause of civil discourse by using Kennedy as a blanket example of all Democrats and takes them to task on three points (insinuations in italics).\n1. Democrats are stupid. How often do we have to tell you; Mr. Bush said that imminence had nothing to do with it?\n2. Democrats are prejudiced. Texas isn't any worse than Massachusetts. \n3. Democrats are disgraceful, unhinged, oblivious to the facts and hateful. Iraq was a bad move politically, and Mr. Bush undertook it for the greater good.\nA bit defensive, aren't we, Mr. Krauthammer? Not too fond of common sense observations? Let's examine the allegations more closely.\n1. Imminence wasn't a factor.\nEliminating imminence from the equation is silly. It isn't an absolute -- it's a subjective term. By the opinion of the observer, threats can be categorized on a spectrum of how "imminent" they are. When Mr. Bush uses "grave and gathering" to describe Iraq's threat, it's just subjective mumbo-jumbo. One person's "grave and gathering" is another's "imminent," in other words. \nWhy play up the WMD angle if you don't have to justify imminence? Dick Cheney still contends that Iraq was involved in 9/11. Mr. Bush frightened the nation with yarns about yellow cake Uranium sales from Africa. Hans Blix was portrayed as part Inspector Clouseau, part Ray Charles. All of this happened just for sport?\nAlso, there's the minor issue of Mr. Bush's own words, as printed in The Houston Chronicle last October: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof ... in the form of a mushroom cloud."\n2. Planned in Texas.\nOK., got me there. Mr. Kennedy is old and prone to drink a little sometimes. And Mr. Bush didn't go on vacation until August.\n3. Not good politically.\nMr. Krauthammer is laying a clever little trap here. Call the liberals names and they'll rage on about the Bushies drawing attention away from the economy or Dubya's obsession with taking care of Poppy Bush's unfinished business. I'll pass, thanks. \nYou can even throw out circumstantial evidence reported in Time magazine that a Karl Rove PowerPoint presentation encouraged Republicans to "focus on the war" before the 2002 midterm elections.\nI'll stick with common sense. As political adviser, Karl Rove created George W. Bush. And as Howard Fineman and Tamara Lipper observed in Newsweek (Oct. 7), Bush and Rove will use " ... national security in a merciless fashion this fall, halfheartedly extending olive branches to Democrats in the capital while knifing them on ... a resolution authorizing war with Iraq. It's a perfect menu as far as Rove is concerned."\nCome to think of it, maybe Teddy Kennedy was right. It does kind of remind me of the business end of a Texas longhorn.