Queasy? I should hope so.

From David Shuster at MSNBC.com:

Talking about European nations and the war on terror, Cheney said, and I quote: "I think some have hoped that if they kept their heads down and stayed out of the line of fire, they wouldn't get hit. I think what happened in Russia now demonstrates pretty conclusively that everybody is a target. That Russia, of course, didn't support us in Iraq, they didn't get involved in sending troops there, they've gotten hit anyway."

The first two sentences are not the issue... it's the third sentence -- the idea that if Russia had only supported us in Iraq, had only sent troops there, they wouldn't have gotten hit. That is insane. Russia got hit because of their conflict in Chechnya. It had nothing to do with whether they did or did not send troops to Iraq. Every Republican I've spoken with today has expressed "displeasure" at the vice president's remarks Furthermore, most of them are feeling awfully "queasy" about Mr. Cheney using the murder of hundreds of children in Russia to make an argument about U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Cheney is not only a fear-monger and a ghoul, he's not even making sense. Even if you can see past the dead children, and forget that whole Cechnya piece, what is he trying to say? Is he really suggesting that Russia avoided joining us in Iraq out of timidity, trying to "keep its head down", and not out of very serious, and justified, doubts about the strength of our case against Saddam and the wisdom of getting involved there, to say nothing about their financial interests there? And what about Spain, that sent troops to Iraq, and got hit anyway? (By the way, for those keeping scorecards, notice he used that "some" rhetorical trick again: "some have hoped that if they kept their heads down...")

There are so many things broken about a mind that can spew such nonsense that I don't know where to begin.