I had thought Democrats had abandoned this strategy, but they appear only to have modified it. Now when anything goes wrong anywhere, it's blame George W. Bush and his policies first. The actions of a few aberrant soldiers and the negligence of their direct superiors can't be to blame for what happened at Abu Ghraib prison over a three-month period, it must be Bush's fault or Donald Rumsfeld's or the policies they put in place.
It wasn't just Ted Kennedy who put on a shameful display of partisan finger-pointing this week. With the exception of Sen. Joe Lieberman, virtually every Democrat who has spoken out on this issue has been quick to assume the abuse at Abu Ghraib was part of some systematic policy ordered, or at least condoned, by those in charge. "There's all kinds of evidence that military intelligence is involved here," Michigan Democrat Sen. Carl M. Levin said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, though the witnesses had just testified to the contrary. Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Jack Reed and New York Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton implied that the abuse resulted from recommendations on interrogation methods made by the general who ran the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which holds suspected terrorists. In every case, the Democrats wish to turn this sorry incident into a weapon with which to beat George W. Bush.
Perhaps the beheading of Nick Berg will refocus the Democrats' ire back where it belongs: on our enemies. We are involved in a difficult and prolonged war against the barbarians who committed this horrific act. They would do it to each of us if given the chance. And what we do not need are politicians who, for partisan political advantage, try to set up some terrible moral equivalence between the acts of our enemies and those of our elected leaders.