George F. Will's column today may have been inspired by a C-Span caller, who challenged him vis-a-vis Republican attacks on John Kerry's call for a more sensitive war on terror.
On the August 13th episode of Washington Journal, the caller told Will and Brian Lamb that Bush is trying to run a sensitive war, only incompetently, in Najaf.
Clearly, Will gave some serious thought to the complexities of this charge since last week's TV appearance, as can be seen in his column today:
"The Bush campaign is pelting John Kerry with dead cats because of his promise to wage a more "sensitive" war on terrorism -- Democrats tend to think in the vocabulary of the therapeutic society and its "caring professions." But the Bush administration is simultaneously struggling to balance the competing imperatives of economizing American lives and waging a war sensitive to the religious sensibilities at stake in the struggle for control of Najaf. In all this, the concept of sovereignty is being pounded shapeless."
