Democrat Know-Nothings

Obviously Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid aren't the brightest bulbs, their reaching high levels of power notwithstanding. But demonstrating willful ignorance about the situation in Iraq is now only stupid, it dangerously plays into the hands of our enemies.

When Nancy Pelosi confessed last year that she felt "sad" about President Bush's claims that al Qaeda operates in Iraq, she seemed to be disputing what every American soldier in Iraq, every al Qaeda operative and anyone who reads a newspaper already knew to be true. (When I questioned him about Pelosi's assertion, a U.S. officer in Ramadi responded, incredulously, that al Qaeda had just held a parade in his sector.)

Perhaps the House speaker was alluding to the discredited claim that al Qaeda operated in Iraq before the war. Perhaps. But the insinuation that al Qaeda's depredations in Iraq might be something other than what they appear has become a staple of the congressional debate over Iraq.

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