While I can muster the requisite moral outrage if necessary, what really astounds me about Durbin’s comments is the political stupidity of it. Does he think saying these things hurts Bush so much that it’s worth the fallout? If so, he’s a buffoon. The Democratic Party has these enormous political problems with appealing to red staters, appearing pro-military, appearing patriotic, etc. These comments help with none of that.

Also, the Democrats weren’t doing too bad until Durbin changed the debate. No wonder Reid’s complaining about distraction. But you can’t blame the White House. When the number two Democrat in the Senate lobs such an enormous and offensive softball right over the plate, the White House has no choice but to smack it out of the park.

Moreover, the merits of the analogy are just so lame. A more apt, but still poor analogy, would be to Turkey a couple decades ago or perhaps France during the Algerian campaign. But these analogies don’t really resonate with the Democratic base. I don’t think one in a million Americans think of Nazi Germany when they hear about terrorists being chained-up or water-boarded. As for Pol Pot, come on!

He also said these comments straight into the camera on the Senate floor and clearly prepared them in advance, so he can’t say he was speaking off the cuff.

In short, everything about their form, content and presentation was just idiotic. It’s of course possible that there was no political calculation to his remarks. This is unlikely given his general hackiness, but it’s probably even more damning if true.