Pinging the Steyn list.
Lousy excuse... next time, take a laptop! 8^)
Excerpt:
Hang on, say the Dems, Bush only wants a war because its an election year. As Dick Cheney pointed out, Every other year is an election year and you cant take half the calendar and put it off-limits. But Im sure even now the New York Times is commissioning Arthur Schlesinger Jr or some other venerable Ivy League Democrat flack to pen a learned essay arguing that the precedents of Americas entries into the first and second world wars suggest that it would be grossly unconstitutional to go into battle in an even-numbered year.
But, if that doesnt stick, some congressional Democrats are saying they wont be able to make a decision about Iraq until they hear what the United Nations thinks. The President had fun with that one: It seems to me that if youre representing the United States, you ought to be making a decision on whats best for the United States, he said last Friday. If I were running for office, Im not sure how Id explain to the American people saying, Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think Im going to wait for somebody else to act.
Okay, if delegating your responsibilities to Kofi Annan wont fly, its time to fall back on a sure-fire favourite. There was nothing new in President Bushs speech today to the United Nations General Assembly, wrote William Saletan in Slate. There was no compelling new evidence, wrote Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. Where have I heard that before? Oh, right: 1998/1999, the standard Clintonites defence of the impeachment era. Theres nothing new here. Weve heard it all before works well enough when its interns, cigars and semen, but it doesnt play quite so well with chemical weapons facilities and nuclear capability. Its true that much of what Bush says could have been said four years ago. In fact, President Clinton did say it four years ago. The difference is he didnt want to do anything about it.
Meanwhile, every ten minutes or so, the funereal Senator Daschle pops up on TV and announces gloomily that he still has a number of questions about Iraq that the President needs to answer. It must be quite a number, because, no matter how many answers the President gives, for Daschle there are always a number of questions that still remain. Actually, the only remaining question is how much longer the Democrats most visible spokesman can afford to go on making himself look like a total idiot. What question does he still need answered? Whats the capital of Iraq?? Daschle fancies himself presidential material. If so, hes supposed to have answers, not just endless unspecified questions.
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