Silly Season Has Begun

It definitely is becoming silly season, which can be read as the run up to the 2008 presidential election. To wit three examples from the last few days.

Lieberman Calls For Formation Of 'War Cabinet'
By DAVID LIGHTMAN
The Hartford Courant
December 6 2005, 11:43 AM EST
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, increasingly isolated in his own Democratic party because of his strong support for the Iraq war, today called on the White House and congressional leaders to form a special "war cabinet" to provide advice and direction for the war effort.

The Connecticut Democrat's "Bipartisan Victory in Iraq Administrative Group," designed to take some of the political edge off the war debate, would be modeled after similar panels during the Vietnam War and World War II.

Lieberman, whom the Bush administration has praised repeatedly for his war stance, defended the president. "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more years," the senator said. "We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

[Doesn’t suggesting formation of a “War Cabinet” imply that the Bush administration is not capable of effectively executing the war, thus “undermine the president’s credibility?" Joe Lieberman is very silly.]

More McCain Attacks: Murtha ‘Sentimental,’ ‘Never Been a Big Thinker’
Think Progress web site
On Sunday, Sen. John McCain — regularly lauded for his nonpartisan “straight talk” — attacked Rep. John Murtha for having “become too emotional" over the Iraq war.

McCain was simply repeating the line he had given Byron York in an interview for the New Republic. That piece is now online, and as you’ll see below, McCain was even more personal when speaking to York:

John Murtha is “a lovable guy,” but “he’s never been a big thinker; he’s an appropriator.” Using language that Bush never could, McCain tells me that Murtha has become too emotional about the human cost of the war. “As we get older, we get more sentimental,” McCain says. “And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy.”

[McCain is 69, Murtha is 73. The fact that he can embrace Bush after what Bush and Rove did to him in South Carolina during the 2000 primaries tells me all I need to know about McCain. McCain is very silly.]

Sen. Clinton co-sponsors anti-flag burning law
December 5, 2005, 10:44 AM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is supporting new legislation to criminalize desecration of the United States flag though she still opposes a constitutional ban on flag attacks.

Clinton, D-N.Y., has agreed to co-sponsor a measure by Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, which has been written in hopes of surviving any constitutional challenge following a 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the subject.

[Clinton wants to legislate to criminalize flag desecration, a right recently sustained by the Supreme Court b y invalidating federal legislation, yet she opposes a Constitutional amendment to forbid it. Clinton is very silly.]

The three examples above illustrate pandering by politicians, I think, that have nothing better to offer.