Say Something, Mr. President

Today, Morton Kondrake (or More-Tony Bennett-Less-Tony-Martin, and as John McLaughlin might call him) says: Finally, Bush Acts to Rebut the Charges That He 'Lied' on Iraq.

Why it took Bush so long to respond to his enemies is a mystery. Aides say that Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Ken Mehlman, Bush guru Karl Rove and the White House communications staff all wanted to be aggressive. It's not clear who didn't.

G.W. has long since played nice-nice with these folks. From the early days of his presidency, G.W. courted Teddy Kennedy for movies and popcorn at the White House.

Mort quotes Bush:

"While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war," Bush said, "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.

"The stakes are too high, the national interest too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and an enemy that is questioning America's will."

Hardly the defense you want to meet the challengers with. I'll take it though... at least he's saying something. What should he say?

Even now, the most definitive defense of Bush has come from the outside — from neo-conservative intellectual Norman Podhoretz in the December issue of "Commentary."

Let's take a look at what Podhoretz says in part of his e-mail:

...so long as we are hunting for liars in this area, let me suggest that we begin with the Democrats now proclaiming that they were duped, and that we then broaden out to all those who in their desperation to delegitimize the larger policy being tested in Iraq—the policy of making the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy—have consistently used distortion, misrepresentation, and selective perception to vilify as immoral a bold and noble enterprise and to brand as an ignominious defeat what is proving itself more and more every day to be a victory of American arms and a vindication of American ideals.

Nice closer for Norman!