From a reader:
Jonah,
Another interesting point about that email you posted is this statement:
“As I see it, I think Bush legitimately believes that dissent is hurting the war effort.”
This reminds me of your argument the other day about how people keep equating opposition to the McCain amendment with support for what occurred at Abu Ghraib. Your writer was, similarly, shifting the argument. Bush did not say that dissent is hurting the war effort, he said that false accusations about lying to get us into war are hurting the war effort. He said, as a matter of fact- “While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began.”
So, your writer seems to be either unintentionally or intentionally misunderstanding what Bush said last week. Does your writer think that the false accusations are not hurting our war effort? Or does he think they are not false? Or does he think they are neither false nor hurting our war effort? If the latter, how exactly do you square that circle- “we built our war on a lie, but it is not hurting our efforts to build peace and democracy in Iraq”?