Peril!

In the course of a post with which I otherwise agree, Ed Kilgore remarks "Edwards' efforts to separate himself from Clinton and Obama by deriding the 'war on terror' (accurate as it is with respect to the terminology involved) is politically perilous, to say the least." This is actually what I think is the most significant aspect of Edwards' decision to take this bit of sloganeering on.

He had the balls to say what everyone knows is true (but only parenthetically) and is too afraid to say and . . . he wasn't struck down by lightning. Hillary Clinton's shameful efforts to play right-wing demagogue in response to Edwards have no sting whatsoever in my view. For years and years this kind of dogma has built-up among Bush administration critics that None May Say The Obvious about the "war on terror" lest they face dire, dire political consequences, but a party that doesn't have sufficient confidence in its national security chops to offer a really banal criticism of the Bush administration is bound to end up projecting that insecurity to voters in a way that's much more damaging than taking a 48 hour hit as the White House borrows the Clinton campaign's talking points.