Two Points of View

"What? Where in the ad did President Bush question the Democrats' patriotism? He said nothing about that. He merely stated accurately their opposition to his policy of preemption and his decision to strike even without the approval of every nation on the planet.

Just what about those statements is wrong, Senator Daschle? If you are ashamed that President Bush is accurately characterizing your endless opposition, and if you think it makes you and your colleagues look unpatriotic, then perhaps you should consider changing your policies. But don't blame President Bush for pointing out the folly of your policies. And don't issue disingenuous preemptive political strikes against Republicans claiming they've questioned your patriotism when they haven't. But if that shoe fits and you don't like the way it looks -- that is, if you find it politically unstylish -- by all means, take it off.

These statements are from David Limbaugh's latest article. Funny how his nose, which is so finely attuned to slurs against President Bush doesn't pick up the obvious slam on Democrats. Also interesting that the only solution is for the Democrats to support President Bush's plans. Yep, the only way for Democrats to be patriotic citizens is to support President Bush. What a great message, particularly in an election year.

The irony is that the ad features the president delivering the 2003 State of the Union speech, which has turned out to be an enormous embarrassment of admitted distortions, including one claim, based on a forged document, that Iraq was a nuclear threat. It was in that speech that the president touted the imminent threat of Iraq's so-far-undiscovered weapons of mass destruction while implying that Saddam Hussein collaborated with Al Qaeda on the 9/11 attacks -- a charge that the president himself recently conceded was without foundation.

In fact, the Iraq war has proved to be a terrible test case for "preemptive self-defense" because the intelligence it was founded on is so much loose sand. If you say somebody is a threat and then it turns out they aren't, your "preemptive attack" is no longer "self-defense."

Worse, though, as Gen. Wesley Clark points out, is that the Iraq war and occupation have been a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda. "I'm not critical of President Bush because he's attacking terrorists," Clark said. "I'm critical of President Bush because he is not attacking terrorists.""

Not much to criticize in Robert Sheer's piece, but then again, I'm biased. But it is the obvious question; how is attacking Iraq protecting us from Terrorists?