Friday, April 23, 2004

Blowback on "stable"

Remember that Kerry quote from last week? It appears that the New York Times editors (obviously following my lead) also disapprove:
"Iraq," Mr. Bush said at his news conference last week, "Iraq will either be a peaceful democratic country or it will again be a source of violence, a haven for terrorists, and a threat to America and to the world."

Mr. Kerry now argues that there is a third option. But what would that be? "I can't tell you what it's going to be," he said to reporters covering his campaign. "That stability can take several forms." True; in the Middle East, there is the stability of Islamic dictatorship, the stability of military dictatorship and the stability of monarchical dictatorship. In Lebanon, there is the stability of permanent foreign occupation and de facto ethnic partition. None is in the interest of the United States; all have helped create the extremism and terrorism against which this nation is now at war.
I had to pinch myself to make sure, but yes, I agree with a paragraph from an NYT editorial.

Correction! (4/27) I don't know what sort of state my brain was in when I wrote this post. I forgot to include the link to the editorial, which is actually from the Washington Post. I also had originally truncated "'Iraq,' Mr. Bush said..." to just "Mr. Bush said...," but I assume everyone figured out what was intended, for no one complained.