I wrote this apparently to endanger the troops

It's took me longer to be offended by Karl Rove's words the other day, and new stories are intent on focusing on this snippet of words:

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

While certainly uncalled for and patently untrue, this was the excerpt that really offended me:

Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.

Kevin writes:

It's nasty and demeaning, but hardly something we haven't heard before. The Al Jazeera passage, on the other hand, goes considerably further: it says specifically that the motive of Dick Durbin and others who criticize prisoner abuse is to put our troops in danger. He didn't say Durbin was merely careless, he said Durbin wanted to put our troops in greater danger. That's treason.

Generally speaking, I tend not to get too bent out of shape by occasional rhetorical howlers. It's just part of the game. But calling Durbin and his fellow liberals traitors - which is clearly what that passage suggests - really is beyond the pale coming from a highly placed political official, isn't it? Or am I missing something here?

According to Karl Rove everything I do, be it eat a bowl of cereal or hang my toilet paper in an overhand fashion, is motivated by my wish to endanger the troops. Everything every liberal does - from Atrios to TBogg, from Akaka to Wyden, from Abercrombie to Wynn - it's all motivated by the need to put our troops in danger.

John Kerry ran for President to put out troops in danger. Hillary runs for re-election because she wants to put the troops in danger. Democrats call for the capture of Osama Bin Laden so we can put our troops in danger. We ask for body armor and other equipment for our troops and more spending on military health care because we want to endanger them even more. We look for ideas to bring the Iraqi conflict to a safe and peaceful end because we want to put our troops in danger. Expanding the military, attempting to ease the bankruptcy burden on those fighting overseas, Democrats who are actually enlisted and fighting right now do so in order to endanger our troops. That's what Karl Rove has said and sees no need to apologize for.

And now rather than spend time discussing things that could actually make our troops safer and perhaps bring them home sooner, we are forced to debate the offensiveness of Karl Rove's words and their place in political debate.

A little bit of irony? Oh yeah. But Karl Rove would say the only reason I bring it up is to endanger the troops.