A Collective "At Last!"Bill Kristol:
Bush's counterpunch hit home. Ted Kennedy was upset. He found the speech "deeply regrettable." How dare the president try "to rebuild his own credibility?" How dare the president defend his honor--and the country's? For the nation's honor is at stake, too. If we went to war based on lies told by our president, then it is a disgrace to us all. It is a further disgrace that we reelected him. It is yet a further disgrace that Congress continues to support this war, by appropriating funds for it. It is a disgrace that Senator Kennedy has not moved to have the president impeached.
At least the anti-American left, which wants to get out of Iraq immediately and to impeach the president, is consistent. But Kennedy--and his colleagues like Sen. Harry Reid--do not really want to follow the logic of their accusations. They would rather just damage the president--and the country's foreign policy--and enjoy the political effect.Michelle Malkin:
My question: What took him so long? He could have made this speech while Sheehan was gaining traction outside his Crawford, Tx. ranch this summer with her "Bush lied!" brigades. He could have made this speech while the anti-war movement and the media were busy politicizing the "2000 dead" milestone in the most macabre and dishonest way. He could have made this speech as Harry Reid was jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin behind the Senate chamber's locked doors.
But he didn't.I think the answer is that they really have grown a little insular over at the White House. They won the election last November, and decided that was it for politics; now they would get down to business. But by not defending themselves vigorously they have gotten to the point where politics is interfering with getting business done.
Jeff Goldstein:
The first victory for the anti-war left itook place shortly after 911, when war supporters on the right agreed, however reluctantly, that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism,” and that we should not question anyone’s patriotism (though the left was of course allowed to question the patriotism of “chickenhawks”; which is only fair, because we’re all just a bunch of cowardly jingoistic scumtonguers, anyhow).
But Glenn touches on an important distinction that we should now be willing to embrace: namely, that though the anti-war position is not inherently unpatriotic, those in the anti-war movement who use lies and misinformation to harm the country are—and political opportunism that relies on revisionist history and the leveling of false charges in order to regain power is indicative of mindset that profoundly cynical and profoundly anti-democratic. I doubt that anybody on the war-supporting right agreed that dissent is the highest form of patriotism; that's kind of fatheaded even for the left. I don't see anybody over there acknowledging that anti-abortion protesters are true patriots.
And it's really impossible to deny that much of the Left is unpatriotic. In the 40s and 50s they rooted for the Soviets, in the 60s and 70s they rooted for the North Vietnamese, in the 1980s they rooted for the Sandinistas, in the 1990s they rooted for the Chinese, and in the 2000s they are rooting for the "resistance in Iraq". It's like if you rooted for Lex Luthor and Mr Mxyzptlk and the Prankster and Brainiac and Bizarro; sooner or later we'll realize that the common thread is that you don't like Superman.
