Countersignature Contra Krauthammer

The notion that Charles Krauthammer is a few donuts short of a dozen isn't exactly earth-shattering to anyone who's managed to wade through his tortured reasoning in the last ten years. However, his column last Saturday provides another excellent example of his spiteful bitterness and pure disconnect from reality. It's really a tragedy that the Washington Post continues to carry this lunatic. In fact, I continually try to figure out why this reject from rationality is given print space.

Having been lead cheerleader in the pundit corps for Bush's failed empire-building adventure in Iraq, Krauthammer's feeling a little let down by the turn of events...after all, his leader declared "Mission Accomplished" a few years ago and here we are bogged down in that thing Bush swore on the campaign trail in 2000 he wouldn't do: nationbuilding. And to all the jackasses out there who think "9/11 changed everything," you haven't been paying attention. Let me repeat for those a few standard deviations below 100 IQ: There is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. Just like there's no connection between men with moustaches and Hitler.

Anyway, Krauthammer, defensive as his worldview crumbles around him, is ostensibly writing a column about the latest defector from the Republican/Neoconservative/Pax Americana camp, Brent Scowcroft. Of course, so many rats are jumping ship, Krauthammer could take his pick of target. The interesting thing, however, is that Krauthammer, like that dying villain who still reaches for his gun to take some measure of revenge against his vanquisher, begins his column with an aside that would only be included for nastiness and spite:

Now that Cindy Sheehan turns out to be a disaster for the antiwar movement -- most Americans are not about to follow a left-wing radical who insists that we are in Iraq for reasons of theft, oppression and empire -- a new spokesman is needed.

Where to begin with this guy's problems? First, Cindy Sheehan has not been a disaster for the antiwar movement -- to the contrary, Sheehan's cross-country trek united an antiwar movement that had been fervent but fragmented, and her journey culminated in a tremendous showing of solidarity on September 24, 2005, in Washington, D.C. Maybe Krauthammer slept through that antiwar rally that saw between 100,000 and 300,000 people converge on the Mall.

Second, Krauthammer makes the incredible assumption that Sheehan's prominence suggests she's leading the movement or that people are "following her." To be sure, some might be -- other women who have lost their children in Krauthammer's folly have joined Ms. Sheehan -- but Krauthammer confuses catalyst with leader, and attempts to diminish a movement through the perceived faults of an individual. Krauthammer just as easily could have labelled Michael Moore the "leader" of the antiwar movement, or Ramsey Clark (the head of International A.N.S.W.E.R., the organization that's been able to mobilize mass antiwar sentiment from a broad spectrum of the U.S.). The point is that Krauthammer remains clueless as to the nature of the opposition to the Iraq boondoggle -- it isn't about a cult of personality (unlike his dear leader, on the other hand...): it's about an administration that lied to goad the country into an ill-conceived and illegal war.

Should I go on? After thinking he's dismissed Sheehan -- and by the way it's becoming clearer every day that we are in Iraq for the neocons idea of empire -- Krauthammer turns his poorly adjusted sights on Brent Scowcroft. The Scowcroft-Krauthammer beef boils down to ruling class "intellectuals" basically arguing about the best way to pursue world domination. Krauthammer believes it is through bloody interventions in other countries (the British medical journal The Lancet now argues that 100,000 civilian Iraqi deaths is a good estimate, and is perhaps too low). Scowcroft believes it is through diplomacy and stability, even if you end up negotiating with mass murderers like Bush Hussein. So Krauthammer's critique of Scowcroft's policy contains grains of truth -- under Scowcroftian regimes, you get in bed with unsavory characters; yet Krauthammer somehow seems to think that such compromises means that his own gory conditions are justified. More unrealistically, he seems to think that he's not guilty of the same thing that he accuses Scowcroft of doing: making deals with devils to further your goals.

Bottom line: Krauthammer is a crank, who if he took the form of Andy Rooney and only complained about shoes and wet umbrellas would be harmless, but instead he dishes his hate and warmongering from prominent perches in the so-called liberal media. If ever there were an argument against a "liberal media," this crank could be exhibit A. But then again, so too could Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, George Will, Robert "Spymaster" Novak, Ann Coulter, Joe Scarborough, and the list goes on and on.

The Washington Post should just do the right thing and refuse to pay for this bitter failure's increasingly incoherent rants.