Despicable

Where will it end? It's not enough that some Democrats actually wanted to deny the democratically-elected prime minister of Iraq the opportunity to address the U.S. Congress.

Now, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean has called Prime Minister al-Maliki an anti-Semite. It's a real shift for the party of Bill Clinton, who courted Yasser Arafat (a real anti-Semite) so assiduously for eight years -- for nothing.

Democrats hate President Bush. That's their prerogative. But even people who hate the President should be hoping that the U.S. will succeed in Iraq, for the Iraqis' sake and for ours. Name-calling and personal attacks on its leader are counterproductive to what should be the bipartisan goal of establishing a stable, democratic Iraq; it only highlights the lack of commitment on the part of Dean and his ilk to actually ensuring that the job gets done.

As Dan Senor points out, there are some delicate internal strategic reasons that prevent the prime minister from coming out with a full throated endorsement of Israel -- even if he wanted to. Howard Dean and the Democrats may not be aware of them. But what's even worse is that they may well be aware of them . . . and simply not care.

Would Dean toss around such language about any other country's leader? Given that he's a nut, maybe so. But his attitude is revealing of a certain dismissive contempt toward the Iraq leadership that others on his side seem to manifest, as well. The other day, on the Imus show, Chris Matthews was complaining about al-Maliki, and made some reference to the point that "we put him there" (that is, in power). These people seem to think that the Iraq leaders are somehow our vassals, whom we can treat as we please.

They're not. They're leaders of a sovereign country and entitled to our respect -- and our admiration for their courage. What's more, the United States didn't "put"
al-Maliki anywhere . . . the Iraq people did. We just helped to create the necessary antecedents for their doing so.