Unchecked Lunacy

Jonathan Chait, Bush-hater extraordinaire files some serious loony in today's LA Times column. Today's loony is disguised as erstwhile commentary on Democratic infighting--specifically the Lamont-Liebermann showdown in Connecticut--but shines through ever so clearly when Chait writes:

Writing in the Hartford Courant, Marshall Wittmann and Steven J. Nider of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council complain that "far too many Democrats view George W. Bush as a greater threat to the nation than Osama bin Laden."

Those loony Democrats! But wait, is this really such a crazy view? Even though all but the loopiest Democrat would concede that Bin Laden is more evil than Bush, that doesn't mean he's a greater threat. Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in the mountains, has no weapons of mass destruction and apparently very limited numbers of followers capable of striking at the U.S.

Bush, on the other hand, has wreaked enormous damage on the political and social fabric of the country. He has massively mismanaged a major war, with catastrophic consequences; he has strained the fabric of American democracy with his claims of nearly unchecked power and morally corrupt Gilded Age policies. It's quite reasonable to conclude that Bush will harm the nation more — if not more than Bin Laden would like to, than more than he actually can.

This is what Lieberman and his backers don't understand. They piously insist that "partisanship stops at the water's edge" and that they won't take political potshots at a Republican president when he's waging a war in America's name — as if Bush were obeying this principle, and as if Bush were just another Republican president rather than a threat of historic magnitude.

Plays well in Kosland but here in the real world we're left wondering exactly what is it that Jonathan is smoking and where we might find some.

Loon.