I hate to write another Joe Lieberman diary, but his new-found friends on the editorial page of the
Wall Street Journal rushed to his defense today.
In a lead editorial, "Lieberman at the Bridge", the
Journal argues that Lieberman is right and the rest of us are wrong.
It's Journal editorializing at its finest, and fair warning about the sludge the Right is about to throw at us for opposing George W. Bush's war.
Take the fifth paragraph. It's a remarkable example of logical legerdemain. It not only conflates Iraq and 9/11--this administration's biggest Big Lie of all--but also manages to bring the Vietnam War back into the discussion:
We're now in the early stages of what might be another long, twilight struggle, this time against Islamist terrorism, and now the partisan tables are turned. While a Republican President is trying to win a campaign in Iraq that is part of a larger war, most Democrats are assailing his policy and predicting disaster, and even the party's senior Members have begun a Vietnam-like chant to "come home, America."
Three paragraphs later, Journal offers up an even bigger doozie, complete with a veiled attack on Minority Leader Harry Reid's patriotism:
[Reid] averred through a spokesman that while the Senator "has a lot of respect" for his colleague, "he feels that Senator Lieberman's position on Iraq is at odds with many Americans." How's that for wartime leadership? Mr. Reid disagrees with Mr. Lieberman's support for the war because the opinion polls do too. Never mind that one reason public opinion has turned against the war is because of the relentless pessimism of the likes of Mr. Reid..
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A couple of paragraphs below that, the Journal serves up a right-wing specialty of the house--namely, misreading the Iraq Liberation Act:
We're confident the Senator would whip all comers in Connecticut. But this liberal animosity toward him speaks volumes about how far left Democratic foreign policy has shifted since Bill Clinton's Presidency. The same Senate Democrats who voted for the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998 and for the war in Iraq in October 2002 are now claiming they were duped and it was all a mistake.
For those of you scoring at home, §8 of the Iraq Liberation Act specifically states, Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces [except for providing military training to Iraqi exile groups] in carrying out this Act.:
The Journal editorial winds up with a time-honored right-wing debate tactic that I call The Dutch Uncle Ploy: Undermine your opponent under the guise of offering friendly advice:
[I]f Democrats are smart they'll listen to what he's saying about the defeatist message they're now sending about Iraq, and about U.S. foreign policy in general...
Smart Democrats who want to win in 2008 aren't going to do it as the party of pessimism and retreat.
Uh, no. Smart Democrats don't take advice from Republican hardliners.
I've got one more quibble with the Journal. An XXL-sized quibble. The subhead to today's editorial reads, "Democrats Assail One of Their Own for Backing the War." One of their own? After George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and James have fallen over themselves in recent days to heap praise on Lieberman, he's not "one of us." He's become one of them.