This isn’t a Republican vs Democrat thing; it’s about senior Democrats who are so over-invested in their hatred of a passing administration that they’ve signed on to the nuttiest slurs of the lunatic fringe. It would be heartening to think that Durbin will himself now be subjected to some serious torture. Not real torture, of course; I don’t mean using Pol Pot techniques and playing the Celine Dion Christmas album really loud to him. But he should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he’s done — in a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country’s military that has no value whatsoever except to America’s enemies. Shame on him, and shame on those fellow senators and Democrats who by their refusal to condemn him endorse his slander.
Mark puts his finger on something that has been bothering me. The Democrats are the "party in opposition" right now, and it is their duty to question, to disagree, to debate. But they seem to have adopted a mode of opposition to everything the president proposes. I think if Bush were to propose the minimum wage, the Dems would turn out against it.
When President Bush came to Washington, he seemed really to wish to elevate the level of discourse there. I think he did his best, but the task seems to be beyond anyone’s grasp. This is not new, though. Hatred in politics has been around since the days of the founding fathers.
But we have come to a time and place where Christian people need to stand against this kind of rhetoric. We need to be especially sensitive to lies. For myself, I don’t believe President Bush lied about WMD in Iraq. I think he believed the intelligence reports and considered that doing nothing was too dangerous. The intelligence reports were wrong.
But instead of calling for improved intelligence and voting for the money to fix it, some on the left prefer to call the President of the United States a liar. That in itself is a lie. Not only that, but it gives aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.
Be sure and read all of Mark Steyn’s column.
