No Whining Nancy

Nancy Pelosi shouldn't have called President Bush to complain about Dick Cheney's comments on Democratic plans validating "the al-Qaeda strategy." Above all, Pelosi's complaints validate Cheney's strategy of saying things that are offensive to Democrats and eliciting an "outraged reaction." Bush and his right-wing supporters view offending liberals as an assertion of their moral superiority in the sense of their willingness to defy conventions, ignore "political correctness," and stick it to their enemies. Rick Perlstein of the New Republic argues that this eagerness to be offensive is one of the reasons why Mitt Romney announced his candidacy at the Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. Given that Ford was a raging anti-semite, holding the announcement at the museum was a way to elicit complaints about anti-semitism and therefore please the conservative base.

What Pelosi should have done was hit Cheney back. And hard!

Pelosi should have said that Cheney was lying about a Democrat/al-Qaida link the same way he lied about Saddam Hussein's implication in 9-11, the Saddam Hussein/al-Qaida link, the location of WMD's and other issues.

Pelosi should have said that the Bush administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq has been the best thing that ever happened to al-Qaida and quoted Harry Reid in saying that the invasion was the biggest foreign policy mistake in American history.

Pelosi also should have said that the best way to drain away al-Qaeda's support in Iraq is to withdraw American troops.

All those things are true and they all need to be said repeatedly. Pelosi should have taken her shot when she had a chance.