| "Al-Qaida should be our top priority," said the two-term president. "Iraq is important, but the terror network is more urgent in terms of its threat to our security."
There are two big risks in this, and they seem to be acting like they don't see them coming. The first is that Bush knows something they don't. When all this is over, it will come out that Saddam was thissssssClose to having a nuke, and had uncounted tons of smallpox, anthrax, and worse. Democrats will then look like the guys whose plan was to let that go on, in the name of chasing some people who every once in a while were going to blow up an airplane or something. In the worst case, we find huge stockpiles of the anthrax powder that was used in the 9/11 attacks... something I fully expect to happen, and something that will make Bush look like the guy who saved a million lives... while the Democrats wanted to go the other way. The second risk is that people will -- quite understandably -- hear in the call to "forget about Iraq for now" merely a thinly-disguised echo of the anti-war marchers. This is what people expect from Democrats, and Clinton is right that it is the last thing they need. Why he then advocates doing it, I cannot imagine. Perhaps he doesn't see it himself; it is common among Democrats to believe their own lies. But they aren't fooling anyone else. |
I don't understand why the Democrats want to take this bet. This whole business about the war on terrorism being a separate thing from the problem in Iraq is a common theme with the Democrats now. It seems to be driven by the belief that they need to come up with some "differentiating factor," something that makes them sound like they're going to be Tough On Terrorism, but in a way that's different from what Bush is doing.