Get Used to It

Where were you when Senator Harry Reid derogated the war effort? Depending on how busy you are, several different places.

There was the time Reid assumed that because a commander-in-chief is not above reproach he is liable to calumny, and called President Bush a "loser." In April, the senator personally conceded Iraq to Syria, Iran and all of the resident enemy. On Wednesday, Reid was one signatory of a letter denying the credibility of both General David Petraeus and the Gregorian calendar, asserting the failure of an Iraqi counterterrorist strategy that a) could not be evaluated before autumn, especially since b) it is actually producing tactical successes. The day before, it was reported, Reid said that he called another general, Peter Pace, an "incompetent" sycophant.

Asked about his latest run of expressions, Senator Reid, as he has done before, gainsaid. Strangely, a number of the leftist constituents to whom Reid spoke about Pace, who want to hear more of that stuff on Capitol Hill, claimed not to have overheard the story. Why would they fib? There isn't a good reason. It has been suggested that Reid really spoke, and no one remembers.

How? The human mind is sensitive to transience, while imperceptive to graduation. Strike a snare drum softly and then heavily: the difference is easily appreciated. Play a roll that grows louder over ten seconds or so, and listeners might be surprised by the magnitude in volume finally registering.

People know what Senator Reid said because one commentator affirmed the remark. Yet he did so with a scrupulous qualification of anything to do with President Bush or the Iraqi campaign. Indeed, "incompetent" was the word but boy, did he ever agree. Almost metrical, with "disastrous" this and "lies" that, the man's writing read like a Mad-Lib.

Unwinding from the left for four years now has been a tapestry of billingsgate. It won't be cut off soon, which is the worst that can be done to enlistees who intend to be shipped to the front; so if the rest of us continue to notice the slights and insults, we at least know we haven't too been coarsened.

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