I saw the good Senator on Fox, and I really have to wonder whether he was helping or hurting the cause. Given the likely audience that he was addressing, it may have been "help," but I'm not sure.
Basically, he was asked about the whole Iraq-terrorism thing. First, he said that Bush's doctrine was to get ALL terrorists who have international reach and threaten the U.S., then criticized Bush for not following through, naming Hamas and Islamic Jihad as examples! The problem with this from a more "even-handed" perspective is that while Hamas and Islamic Jihad certainly are terrorists, they don't seem to fall in the "international reach" category and the U.S. doesn't seem to interest them much, at least as targets here at home. Leaders of those groups have said as much, anyway, with the leader of Hamas saying they have no interest in attacking the U.S. and don't have the means to do it anyway (at least that was before our invasion of Iraq). Of course, the second obvious problem is that if you include Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorists "with international reach" that Bush should have gone after, Bush actually gains credibility for going after one of these groups' primary sponsors, IRAQ! Democrats have been very careful to say that Iraq had no connection to 9/11 and no connection to al Qaida, which does have international reach and does threaten the U.S. Now here's Graham inadvertantly backing up the President, in my eyes. Of course, Fox viewers may not make that connection since Graham didn't explicitly state it. This is vintage Graham, BTW. Remember when McArthur, I mean Graham, criticized the President for not continuing on into China, I mean Syria?
But then I have to consider the audience. Do two-thirds of Fox viewers believe that Iraq attacked us on 9/11? Apparently so. If one Democratic Senator is not going to change their mind by speaking the truth about the lack of those connections, maybe he would be more effective by attacking from the more hawkish side of the Bush Administration. Graham actually implied in this interview that Bush should have bombed the Bakaa Valley, much to the shock of the interviewers. The whole argument seemed to be that Bush hasn't been diligent enough in pre-emptive war everywhere.
Odd but true. Hmmmm. I still can't decide. Maybe you can help me.