Unless things improve dramatically on the ground in Iraq, Democrats have a powerful argument: If you believe the Iraq war is a success, vote Republican. If you believe it is a failure, vote Democratic.
Isn’t that irresponsible? Not in the slightest. It’s only under Bush that criticizing the conduct of a war has been depicted as somehow unpatriotic. Lincoln was lambasted by opponents during the Civil War as was FDR during World War II. To take a lesser example, some of the same Sean Hannitys of the world who slam antiwar critics were blasting Bill Clinton’s Bosnia policy in 1999 when U.S. planes were in the air over Belgrade.
We’ll see this summer if Democrats begin to get up in the morning, look in the mirror and say, “This isn’t about us. It’s about them.” We’ll see if, when Karl Rove wants to talk about Iraq, the Democrats respond with three familiar words: “Bring it on.”
