A week ago, The Nation set a trap in an editorial in their November 28th issue. The bait was a crude assertion that the war is “a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation.”
Ordinarily bait that obvious would warn people off and the whole thing would disappear down the memory hole. But before anyone could yell, “No, it’s a trap!” a blogger by the name of Wendy Button at Huffington Post grabbed the bait and tore into it.
Holding up her prize, Ms. Button writes:
Let's repeat that last sentence, "As such it is a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation."
She goes on to demand that the magazine retract its dastardly words, then finishes strong:
They go over there knowing what we know now. That's not "a growing stain." That's a badge of honor. And as long as those words stand, there is only one place to look for "a growing stain," at The Nation.
While Button is a proxy of sorts for the DLC (Her bio indicates that she “has written for Democratic Senators John Edwards, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John Kerry.”), a flame war at HuffPo is a far cry from a battle with centrists for control of the party. And by smearing all Americans who don’t share their fanaticism, the antiwar left in no position to claim credit for Murtha-style attrition among hawkish Democrats. Hillary can simply move around the reds to higher ground without engaging them.
