Questioning your opponent's patriotism
Anytime any Republican questions the wisdom of a Democrat's foreign policy pronouncements, such criticism is in turn attacked as questioning the Democrat's patriotism.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, Republicans "question" their patriotism much less than Democrats attack Republicans' patriotism.
For example:
- Sen. Ted Kennedy said that the Iraq War was "cooked-up" in Texas to help President Bush politically.
- Howard Dean suggested that an "interesting theory" was that President Bush had been warned about the 9/11 attacks beforehand by the Saudis.
And the list goes on, with this "quote of the day" from Howard Dean, via Eric "What Liberal Media" Alterman. (The primary source for the quote is here.)
One professor who made a big impression was Wolfgang Leonhard, who taught Russian history. He’d been a Party official in East Germany and had defected. A fantastic lecturer. He once told us, ‘Pravda lies in such a way that not even the opposite is so.’ That really hit home. I felt he wasn’t just referring to the Soviet government but to our own at the time. You knew it from some of the things Nixon talked about—denying the bombing of Cambodia—or from Kissinger’s ‘Peace is at hand’ statement, when clearly peace wasn’t at hand. They said these things just to get reëlected. I think there are some similarities between George Bush’s Administration and Richard Nixon’s Administration: a tremendous cynicism about the future of the country; a lack of ability to instill hope in the American people; a war which doesn’t have clear principles behind it; and a group of people around the President whose main allegiance is to each other and their ideology rather than to the United States. [emphasis added]
Geez, that sounds like someone questioning the President's patriotism. Howard Dean's homework assignment is a study of "hypocrisy." My suggestion is to find some statements regarding a log in your own eye vs. a speck in your brother's eye. You can find it in the same part of the Bible you originally put the Book of Job in.
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