Kaus Piles

They just get bigger and steamier.

Kaus attempts to clarify his latest slam on Senator John Kerry and fails miserably. The fake quotes are the original comment; the parenthetical is the putative clarification:

Kerry: 'I might have been brainwashed!' ... Whoops, he said "misled." Sorry ... [???-ed. Click here. Search for "Romney." ... Or just go here.] 11:25 P.M.

The first "explanatory" link states:

(In 1968, when Michigan Gov. George Romney claimed that the Johnson administration had "brainwashed" him about Vietnam, Sen. Eugene McCarthy quipped that in Romney's case "a light rinse would have done.")

Well, that explains nothing. John Kerry didn't claim he was brainwashed, he claimed that Bush misled the country about the reasons for going to war. There's no equivalence between claiming to have been brainwashed and claiming to have been lied to (or claiming to have believed a lie). Is Kaus suggesting Bush's statements were so obviously fraudulent that Kerry and the American public shouldn't have believed them? Kaus certainly didn't claim that at the time the statements were made. Is he criticizing Kerry for stating that Bush misled the country? Neither the original comment nor the explanation supports that interpretation, and Kaus offers nothing to demonstrate Bush's veracity. The only thing Kaus's statement reveals is an irrational hatred of Kerry.

It's also interesting that Kaus brings up Vietnam, since Kerry served honorably and with courage in that war while Kaus (legally) avoided service. Kaus chose a particularly poor analogy by which to claim moral or intellectual superiority to Kerry.

In Kaus's case, a brainwash would be flooding the Dead Zone.