Right-wingers mistrust intellecutals and value "thinking from the gut," so why do they tolerate the almost impossibly turgid Charles Krauthammer among their numbers? Possibly they admire his willingness to defend any mound of dung the Republican establishment shovels out, but gosh, what Rube Goldbergian contraptions he employs as arguments! Case in point: yesterday's attempt to justify the Iraq war by debunking the NIE's suggestion that the Iraq war has made America less safe. It contains this amazing statement: "The question posed -- does the Iraq war increase or decrease the world supply of jihadists? -- is itself an exercise in counting angels on the head of a pin. Any answer would require a complex calculation involving dozens of unmeasurable factors, as well as constructing a complete alternate history of the world had the U.S. invasion of 2003 not happened." Golly, Chuck, do you need to do differential calculus to know right from wrong? I thought it was a pretty simple calculation in 2002; I said to myself, "self, al-Qaeda is the enemy, and Hussein hates al-Qaeda, and bin Laden hates Hussein, and Scott Ritter says there aren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when he has ample reason to say otherwise, so going to war in Iraq is a stupid idea," and behold! I was a) right, b) right, c) right, d) right, and e) right. I could go on and on about Krauthammer's "rhetorical" "skill" -- no, you jerk, no one imagines that jihadists would be "tending petunias" if they hadn't gone to Iraq, but I dare to imagine that there might be fewer of them because we might have tried a real anti-terror policy instead. But it just angers up the blood. And besides, why pick on the fellow? After all, even John Warner is getting off the Iraq bandwagon as we speak. And those two shadowy figures ahead of him on the dirt road? Those would be James Baker and Peggy Noonan.
Speaking of being-with-stupid, I understand Mr. Bush is in a dark mood over recent events. He did his best by Congress in September and still the Congressional leadership failed him (in the Foley incident), and though he could have "done better by Congress" by, I don't know, doing something right during the previous six years, I guess I understand how he feels. But I also understand he's upset about all the disloyalty among his ranks, as evidenced by all the people who talked to Bob Woodward. How many times must I tell these pimps! Have an agenda worth defending and you won't have to worry about who said what to whom! A real leader doesn't enforce loyalty; a real leader inspires it.
Meanwhile, Virginia Senator George Allen, whom a friend of mine calls "the gift that keeps on giving," now gets caught failing to properly report stock option transactions to the Senate. But here's a more interesting charge, related by Bloomberg in a follow-up report: during his Senate tenure, Mr. Allen has opposed an accounting rule change that would have forced corporations to list stock options as expenses -- since, really, that's what they are, expenses -- while he still had stock options in various companies and could still theoretically benefit financially. That he appears to have lost money from at least some of these transactions might testify to his incompetence or greed more than his good character. I mean, a company that makes strap-on computers? Does that sound comfy, stylish, efficient, or innovative to you? But, let's let George account for himself, as it were: he claimed that counting stock options as expenses would make those options less attractive, which would reduce investment, which would reduce innovation, which would put our military men and women in peril. So, clamping down on corruption puts our fighting men and women in peril. Yikes, we are a decadent culture, aren't we?
