I really wish this suprised me, but it doesn't. While I've been prating for the people in Myanmar, and wishing I could do more to help, like I did after Katrina, I've also been wondering, silently to myself, "just how is the Left going to spin this to pin it on Bush?"
Well, Anne Applebaum of Slate Magazine has the answer:
Unfortunately, the phrase "coalition of the willing" is tainted forever—once again proving that the damage done by the Iraq war goes far beyond the Iraqi borders...There you have it, folks. Because George W. Bush sent U.S. troops into Iraq, people are dying in Myanmar. Incredible. The logic is just... breathtaking.
Rob makes a good point in his entry over at Say Anything -- The parallels between the ruthlessness, megalomania, and brutality of the ruling Junta in Myanmar and the former regime of Saddam Hussein are so striking that it is tempting to question the intelectual integrity, if not the reasoning powers, of someone who advocates intervention in one situation while opposing intervention in the other. I would further argue that to not only take that position, but in fact to use ones support of the former as further excuse to criticize the latter, requires a level of chutzpah that would make P.T. Barnum kneel in awe.
But this is what BDS reduces people to. I have been hesitant, myself, to use that term, because I think that often on the Right we use it as a form of Argumentum Ad Hominem to dismiss criticism of the President. But every time I resolve not to take that view, along comes a case of true BDS that is so blatant that I find myself facing the old laugh-or-cry conundrum.
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