Watching the Republicans try to explain why our intelligence community has concluded that the war Iraq has made the threat of Islamic terrorism worse kind of reminds me of watching the Clintonistas try to explain away Clinton’s testimony before the Grand Jury and the gifts under Bettie Currie’s bed. The GOP doesn’t really have an excuses, and certainly no convincing answers. They are left to make completely asinine remarks. Take just two, for example.
When, on CNN, Alexander M. Haig Jr., the former secretary of state for President Ronald Reagan, belittled the report as the product of liberal journalists, Richard C. Holbrooke, the United Nations ambassador under Mr. Clinton, said it was an astonishing thought that the nation’s entire intelligence apparatus might be doing the bidding of Democrats.
…But the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, used language that echoed that of President Bush, saying that “either we are going to be fighting this battle, this war overseas, or it’s going to be right here in this country.”
It really is hard to make worse defenses of the President than this. It’s pathetic.
