Inside Politics

Bad-news bearers

“The danger for Democrats now is that their strategies all seem to count on bad news from Iraq,” Deborah Orin writes in the New York Post.

“In fact, the buzz in Dem circles was how unlucky it was for [Missouri] Rep. Dick Gephardt that he gave his big Iraq-gone-wrong speech on Tuesday, choosing the day that Saddam’s sons were killed to claim that President Bush has made America ‘less safe.’

“In other words, the Dems are putting themselves into the awful box where it’s good for them politically if U.S. troops gets ambushed. Their strategy roots for bad news,” Miss Orin said.

The columnist noted that Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry “didn’t bother to issue a statement hailing the elimination of Uday and [Qusai] — but he did fire off a press release chiding Bush for daring to claim that military operation was a success and marks a hopeful sign for Iraq.”

“‘Now is not the time for victory laps. Too many Americans have died in Iraq since the last one,’ fumed Kerry, sounding as if the news was gloomy, not good.”

McCain raps Dean

Sen. John McCain expressed indignation that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean would dismiss the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s sons with the words “The ends do not justify the means.”

“I am astonished. A lot of people have compared me with Governor Dean. I could not disagree with him more — to say that the end doesn’t justify the means,” Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican and former presidential candidate, said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews.

“The ends were the eradication of two psychotic, murdering rapists, and the means were through legitimate use of the American military helped out by some excellent information that they gained,” Mr. McCain said.

“How in the world someone could in any way think this end was not justified by anything, which was the removal of two odious characters, frankly, is beyond me. And I think, frankly, Mr. Dean does the nation a great disservice when he doesn’t recognize how wonderful an event this is and how important it is to the morale of the troops that these guys are gone. I mean, our troops serving in Iraq.”

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