Bitter, egregious slander

The Decembrist (via Brad DeLong) finds a Bush ‘04 email that says in part:

Wesley Clark, who was in Europe when Saddam Hussein was captured, criticized the President this week…

(I’d like to be able to read the whole thing, incidentally. Any chance of posting it somewhere?)

Never mind that he was in Europe because he was testifying against Slobodan Milosevic, who is accused of war crimes, in the International Criminal Court. (Transcripts of Monday and Tuesday, via Political wire.)

Their logic is even more flawed than that. Wes Clark isn’t employed by the US government; he doesn’t have anything to do with the capture, or non-capture, of Saddam Hussein, or any other military actions. His being in the US or not has nothing to do with whether the US military is successful.

So what’s their criticism? Apparently, that you need to be in the US (and, probably - I’m guessing here - in a good, right-thinking part of the US) if you’re going to criticise the US. Boggle. How on earth does that follow?

Well, it doesn’t. And while Bush doesn’t stoop himself to these levels, some of his other supporters (possibly channelling Ann Coulter) suggest that anything critical of Bush’s foreign policy is treason. (FWIW, Daniel Drezner isn’t exactly a tree-hugging liberal…).

I particularly like the accusation that publicly disagreeing with the President when the country is at war is an act of treason. Well, first of all, it’s not; it’s a free country, which means I can call my President / Prime Minister a liar and a scoundrel, and that’s acceptable public discourse. In fact, it’s valuable public discourse, and I would not want, as a Liberal, want to live in a country where you couldn’t raise your voice against The Powers That Be. That way lies Russia, which still has a Parliament, but not that you’d know. (Iran, incidentally, appears to have been moving in the other direction for quite some while now - something perhaps to take into consideration for the next boundary redistribution of the Axis of Evil.)

Secondly, the country is not at war. How do we know? Simple: the President told us. He landed on that aircraft carrier and told us that major combat operations had ended, that it was mission accomplished. US troops are still there to keep the peace and for nation building, but there isn’t anything like a war going on any more.

OK, so you could say the War on Terror is still going on. Well, first of all, the War on Terror isn’t a war. But even if it was, the War on Drugs is still ongoing, with as much justification and success as the War on Terror.

So to Republicans who object to people criticising Bush on Foreign Policy, I say: you’re right. I hope, therefore, that you will join me in calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush, who also criticised the performance of the President when the country was at war. After all, it’s only fair.