Downer

publius of Legal Fiction brings us an excellent discussion of "Plausible Demagoguery".

The obvious conclusion that follows from Clarke's revelations is that the war on Iraq was not part of the war on terror. In fact, invading Iraq undermined the war on terror and, as Howard Dean said, has not made America safer. But, and this is what I was trying to get at, Kerry can't say what's obvious - "Iraq was a mistake." On the one hand, his vote makes it hard to say that. But if he actually said that Iraq was a mistake, he could be demagogued as a Saddam-lover and as a troop-opposer. But again, we all know that Kerry thought it was a mistake, even if he can't say anything. So we'll spend this election speaking in code.

I've been thinking of getting a t-shirt made that says, "Howard Dean was right and that is why he lost."