Giving Comfort to the Enemy

Cheney and the people presumably transmitting to Bush through his earpiece during the debates seem to love to accuse Kerry of giving “comfort to the enemy” whenever he recounts how badly the war is going. I certainly hope Kerry’s people have realized the glaringly obvious way they can turn this rhetorical device to their own advantage.

In his debate with Edwards, Cheney explained that the 9-11 attacks cost America over one million jobs. Of course, this just isn’t true. It cost America a few thousand lives, but there’s no way it cost us a million jobs. Disasters actually tend to create jobs. By crediting Osama’s attacks for America’s unemployment crisis, Cheney is, in effect, giving comfort to the enemy.

Meanwhile, in his second debate with Kerry, Bush explained that we had to invade Iraq and that, indeed, our entire foreign policy had to be changed because of Osama’s attacks. So – according to this statement – Osama not only succeeded in changing our relationship to Al Qaeda, he succeeded in fundamentally altering US policy. Bush, too, is giving comfort to the enemy.

Please, someone from the Kerry camp, if you’ve somehow followed a link to this blog, don’t let Bush and Cheney credit Osama with any more of America’s problems or new doctrines. Osama doesn’t deserve it, and the President doesn’t deserve this false alibi. Call out this tactic for what it is: the obfuscation of fact, and great props to Osama.

Who is giving comfort to the enemy, now?