No Joe-Mentum?

The horrible torture of those two American soldiers in Iraq draws this response from National Review's David Frum :

"There will alas be no shortage of people ready to suggest that American errors and abuses in the treatment of detainees somehow caused/mitigates/compares with the torture, mutilation, and beheading of captured US service personnel. Let me raise just one of dozens of possible responses to such people:

"Much that happens in Iraq seems senseless, but the kind of terrorism practised by al Qaeda in Iraq is anything but. It is profoundly rational, purposeful, and goal-directed. They do not torture, mutilate, and behead because they are enraged by some piece of propaganda they happened to hear on al-Jazeera the day before. Terrorism is a political method, adopted in pursuit of political ends. Those ends were selected - and the methods chosen - long before anybody had ever heard of Guantanamo as anything other than a sleepy naval station."

Yesterday we brought you the NYT's Dems-are-steamed-at-Kerry piece. Now American Prospect's Greg Sargent declares the story "quite a piece of work. First it bungles a key fact about John Kerry:

" Mr. Kerry now describes the war in Iraq as a mistake, even though he once supported it.

"Actually, Kerry repeatedly described the war as a mistake during the 2004 campaign. What really happened was that he 'supported' the President's request for the authorization to use force in Iraq if the President deemed it necessary. Then Kerry repeatedly criticized the President's use of that authorization to invade the way he did as a mistake. Is it too much to ask from The Times that they make this not-terribly-complex distinction? . . .

"Interviews 'suggest' a frustration; his 'peers' say he's political, though no 'peer' is quoted saying so, even anonymously. Meanwhile, the piece also adds high up in the story that Kerry's position leaves Dems 'open to Republican taunts that they are `cutting and running' in Iraq' without letting any Dem rebut that argument until the end of the piece. And of course the story features an obligatory reference to Kerry's 'I was for it before I was against it' campaign gaffe.

"This is really cheap stuff -- thinly sourced, factually questionable and bordering on snide -- and it's truly surprising that it got past any Times editor."

For good measure, Sargent adds:

"In their piece on Dem division, The Washington Post does The Times one better, literally reprinting a GOP press release: 'GOP leaders took obvious pleasure in the Democrats' disarray, issuing a stream of press releases with headlines such as, 'Democrats Divided On The Meaning Of Their Own Amendments.' ''

Um, is citing the propaganda that one side is putting out the same as embracing that propaganda?

Andrew Sullivan has found a Bush Cabinet member he likes: