You Must Admire

I can't help but admire examples of depravity in their purest form, such as the pure greed of Wal-Mart and Target (using slave labor in China to bankrupt every local business in their path), and the utter shamelessness of our current president. Now that I have to search the dark corners of the web for Krugman, I've been reading E.J. Dionne more frequently:

The bad faith of Bush's current argument is staggering. He wants to say that the "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and Senate" who "voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power" thereby gave up their right to question his use of intelligence forever after. But he does not want to acknowledge that he forced the war vote to take place under circumstances that guaranteed the minimum amount of reflection and debate, and that opened anyone who dared question his policies to charges, right before an election, that they were soft on Hussein.

By linking the war on terrorism to a partisan war against Democrats, Bush undercut his capacity to lead the nation in this fight. And by resorting to partisan attacks again last week, Bush only reminded us of the shameful circumstances in which the whole thing started.