Crazy Dicks

First, Dick Cheney says that if Kerry is elected, we'll be attacked again. Now, Dick Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State, makes this ridiculous statement:

Armitage said, in part, that officials expected "that the violence will increase, both to try to have an effect on our elections in early November, as well as to try to thwart the ability to have elections in Iraq in January."

After Armitage had apparently ended the news conference by saying, "Thank you very much," a reporter asked him to clarify his statement linking the violence in Iraq to the elections, according to the transcript.

"It's quite obvious that they would like to raise (the) costs to President Bush. I think this is their cynical effort to do that and to somehow influence our elections, and they will fail," Armitage said.

"They are trying to influence the election against President Bush," he added.

These people will say anything. I'm sure Iraqi insurgents would like to see a new US president, though Kerry hasn't demonstrated a sound exit strategy, either. Seriously, though, I don't think attacking your occupying force has much, if anything, to do with their upcoming elections. It probably has more to do with, oh, the fact that they're an occupying force.

What is truly occurring in Iraq -- that we've destabilized the nation so much that it's on the brink of civil war -- won't be a factor in the election. That Bush can say that everything's fine, that the Dicks can spew such outlandish bile, and that Bush can still be up in the polls (whether or not polls matter) just proves how little Iraq matters to Americans. The war is going just fine, we're such badasses, hooray for America.

The presidential debates can't come soon enough. We need them.

(Propz to Atrios.)