Brouhaha

The Washington Post's front-page article today titled "Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks" has triggered a firestorm on the Left. What seems like a sensible reaction from Democratic moderates to outrageous, defeatist statements made by Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi (just to name two; there are others) is apostasy to the Left's pundits. Yellow Journalalmism (huh?) is one typical reaction, Oliver Willis has another. Basically, the message from the Howard Dean apologists is "capitalize on public opinion against the war;" go for the throat. More red meat! MORE!

The Right's pundits, on the other hand, are looking at all this gnashing and thrashing among the Dems with some amusement and not a little satisfaction. But not all. Carol Platt Liebau, writing on the WaPo article, has this to say:

How inadvertantly revealing. No, they aren't afraid of demoralizing the troops. No, they aren't afraid of losing the war on terror. They're afraid of a political backlash for having spoken from their hearts.

Cam Edwards, on the other hand, asks us to identify who said what:

Quote #1- “The idea that the Americans are going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.”
Quote #2- “There is no doubt that the space in which the terrorists can move has begun to shrink and that the grip around the throats of the enemy has begun to tighten. With the deployment of soldiers and police, the future for the terrorists has become frightening.”

OK, you've got Quote #1. You may not be surprised when you learn who said #2.

And finally...I've been listening to Randi Rhodes on Air America for about the last hour and a half. [ed: why? why would you DO that? uh, I dunno...masochism?] She's done a pretty good job of promulgating the Dean/Pelosi talking points, in between describing the war as "Bush's personal Al Qaeda Training Program," calling the war a "failure," invoking the spirit of Walter Cronkite's comments after the Tet Offensive, and bashing the living HELL out of Joe Lieberman. And on that last point, anyone want to take a bet Joe will pull a Zell Miller in the near future? I think it's even money. One can only take so much.