NY Times Editorial
More Than a Feeling
Published: April 4, 2007

President Bush and his advisers have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they’re unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don’t support the troops, to cite just a few. But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush’s latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too “emotional” to see things clearly.

The direct target was Matthew Dowd, one of the chief strategists of Mr. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, who has grown disillusioned with the president and the war, which he made clear in an interview with Jim Rutenberg published in The Times last Sunday. But by extension, Mr. Bush’s comments were insulting to the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and spouses have served or will serve in Iraq.

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Mr. Dowd’s case, Mr. Bush said, “as I understand it, is obviously intensified because his son is deployable.” Over the weekend, two of Mr. Bush’s chief spokesmen, Dan Bartlett and Dana Perino, claimed that Mr. Dowd’s change of heart about the war was rooted in “personal” issues and “emotions,” and talked of his “personal journey.” In recent years, Mr. Dowd suffered the death of a premature twin daughter, and was divorced. His son is scheduled to serve in Iraq soon.

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This form of attack is especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free: the Iraqis would welcome America with open arms, the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues — and the all-volunteer military would concentrate the sacrifice on only a portion of the nation’s families...[Open in new window]