...is that of another rat deserting the sinking ship.
Charles Krauthammer -- neocon, warmonger -- once wrote of King George I that the liberation of Kuwait was an act of courage (!) undermined by the failure (as he saw it) to pursue the defeated Iraqi army to Baghdad. Since before the invasion of Iraq, Krauthammer has loudly, persistently, enthusuastically, and above all prolifically promoted the war. He has used every conceivable rationale to lionize the Bush/Cheney administration and belittle their opponents. (He once famously suggested that Al Gore had gone off his lithium.) He has deployed with vigor his signature strategy of investing considerable rhetorical skill in a false premise.
Until now, that is. On April 13, Krauthammer's weekly Washington Post column described the initial results of the surge as "promising" (after accusing Democrats of being "disconnected from the realities of the war on the ground"). Claiming that the "landscape is shifting," Krauthammer approvingly quoted Marine General James Conway as reporting that we "have turned the corner." This must be a considerable corner (and how many more do we have to turn, anyway?), as Krauthammer has not written about the war in his most widely distributed forum since. Instead, he has put himself forward as an expert on immigration, written about the election cycle, and fallen back on that old reliable, Palestinian bashing. But of the war, which he has otherwise flogged relentlessly for four years, he has had this to say: Zero. Zed. Nil. Nada. Nothing. You know that this thing is on life support when his like won't apply CPR.
It's all over but the crying, but sad to say there are still many bitter tears to be wept by the families and friends of those still to be killed and maimed in the abattoir of Iraq, a charnel house whose construction Charles Krauthammer cheered on with the boosterism of a Chamber of Commerce president. Now, like his heroes in the White House, he doesn't even have the decency to propose a way out. Instead, he'd rather take out his frustrations on that most defenseless of people, the immigrant. Maybe he should increase his lithium