Testing The Washington Post‘s Limits

The Washington Post has what it is pleased to call an “Analysis” on the front page, above the fold, today by Dana Milbank entitled “Tying Kerry to Terror Tests Rhetorical Limits.” Its argument (and it is an argument, not an “analysis”) is that it is a Bad Thing, Over the Top, Beyond the Pale, etc., that “President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq.”

Milbank offers several examples of what he regards as the Republicans’ beyond the pale rhetoric, such as President Bush’s recent comment that Kerry’s recent criticism of Allawi “can embolden the enemy” and a comment by Vice President Cheney, who Milbank said “tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him ‘destructive’ to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism. ”

Milbank, however, never explains why this Republican rhetoric is worse, — more out of bounds and over the top — than the equally if not more harsh rhetoric coming from Kerry and the Democrats, who say Bush, “living in a fantasy world of spin,” is a lying incompetent who has undermined the war on terror by his irrational, obsessive “diversion” into Iraq.

When the Republicans say the Democrats are undermining the war on terror, they are denounced on the front page (under the fig leaf of “Analysis”) as “test[ing] the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.” When the Democrats say Bush is undermining the war on terror by his obsession with Iraq, they are … well, who knows? Milbank and the Post don’t say.

But wait; there’s more! And I’m not even referring to Milbank’s quoting a former speechwriter for President Clinton, Jeff Shesol, for the apparently expert opinion that this rhetoric is “sharp and ugly” and that it results from “clearly a decision by the Republican hierarchy,” or Nancy Pelosi’s considered opinion that “[t]hese despicable comments cross the line from partisan politics to shameless fear tactics.”

Take a look at this example of Republican perfidy, one of four bulleted items Milbank provides: