President of the conflation

Bush's bullshit has become as ubiquitous as air, so this little nugget of rhetorical brilliance flew right past me last week. Thanks to Matt Yglesias for sticking my nose in it.

The hatred of the radicals existed before Iraq was an issue, and it will exist after Iraq is no longer an excuse. The government of Russia did not support Operation Iraqi Freedom, and yet the militants killed more than 180 Russian schoolchildren in Beslan.

The mind reels.

I guess I have no choice but to agree though; sending U.S. troops into Chechnya to help crush the insurgency there will not make us safer from Islamist terrorists.