This is from a Dana Milbank story in today’s Washington Post:

President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq — a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.

…It was the latest instance in which prominent Republicans have said that Democrats are helping the enemy or that al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and other enemies of the United States are backing Kerry and the Democrats. Such accusations are not new to American politics, but the GOP’s line of attack this year has been pervasive and high-level.

Now read this from Instapundit:

Charles Krauthammer joins the list of those wondering why Kerry is dissing our allies:

The terrorists’ objective is to intimidate all countries allied with America. Make them bleed and tell them this is the price they pay for being a U.S. ally. The implication is obvious: Abandon America and buy your safety.

That is what the terrorists are saying. Why is the Kerry campaign saying the same thing?

Why, indeed.

Notice that Glenn doesn’t quote Kerry directly. So what did Kerry say that was so terrible? According to Krauthammer, it was this:

“John Kerry’s campaign has warned Australians that the Howard Government’s support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.” So reports the Weekend Australian (Sept. 18).

Jeez, why would Kerry say such a thing? Like, maybe, because it’s true? Just a guess.

(You’ve probably noticed that in Glennieworld, any news story that puts George Bush in a bad light or John Kerry in a good light is an example of “bias.” Whether the story is true or not is rarely a consideration.)

But we still don’t have a direct quote, so who knows what Kerry actually said? Chuckie and Glenn are placing an awful lot of faith in Australian news media, methinks. But Glenn continues:

UPDATE: It just gets worse:

Democrats moved quickly to fuel skepticism, denouncing Allawi’s message in unusually pointed terms.

While Kerry was relatively restrained in disputing Allawi’s upbeat portrayal, some of his aides suggested that the Iraqi leader was simply doing the bidding of the Bush administration, which helped arrange his appointment in June.

“The last thing you want to be seen as is a puppet of the United States, and you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips,” said Joe Lockhart, a senior Kerry adviser.

This is behavior that is absolutely unacceptable coming from a Presidential campaign in wartime, and it’s not an isolated incident but part of a pattern of such behavior. Joe Lockhart should apologize for these remarks, and Kerry should fire him. Otherwise you’re going to hear a lot of people questioning Kerry’s patriotism. And they’ll be right to. [emphasis added]

So, in Glennieworld, pointing to a painfully obvious truth is unpatriotic.

Glenn is a bit vague about which part of “Allawi’s message” the Dems disagreed with. Maybe it was the blatant lie about how things are just swell in Iraq. Telling the truth about Iraq is unpatriotic. Questioning the competence of Fearless Leader is unpatriotic.

Next we’ll be told that thinking is unpatriotic. All true Americans must check their brains at the door.

Glenn links to a New York Post editorial:

IMAGINE if, in the presidential election of 1944, the candidate opposing FDR had in sisted that we were losing the Second World War and that, if elected, he would begin to withdraw American troops from Europe and the Pacific.

We would have called it treason. And we would have been right.

Let’s change that around to this:

IMAGINE if, in the presidential election of 1972, the candidate opposing Richard Nixon had insisted that we were losing in Vietnam and that, if elected, he would begin to withdraw American troops from southeast Asia.

That candidate would have been George McGovern, and he would have been right, and withdrawal at that point would have saved thousands of American lives. And if an antiwar candidate had been elected in 1968, tens of thousands of American lives would have been saved. The Vietnam memorial wall in Washington, DC, would have been a lot smaller. And America would have been no less secure as a result.

Glenn continues:

ANOTHER UPDATE: Greg Djerejian calls Lockhart’s comment “disgraceful,” and observes:

Remember, Kerry may need to work with this so-called “puppet” in the future. Regardless, this is astonishingly irresponsible campaign rhetoric from a key member of the challenger’s campaign team. To malign the serving PM of Iraq as appearing a “puppet” plays right into the handbook of insurgents operating in Iraq. I’m truly shocked Kerry would ostensibly authorize such an inflammatory statement (ie., not in the Casablanca ’shocked, shocked’ kinda way).

Djerejian was commenting upon Paul Krugman’s column today, in which Krugman wrote: “In an analysis titled ‘Inexcusable Failure,; Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies details how the U.S. ‘failed to treat the Iraqis as partners in the counterinsurgency effort.’ U.S. officials, he declares, are ‘guilty of a gross military, administrative and moral failure.’”

Once again, I urge you to read James Fallows’s articles in the Atlantic Monthly, “Bush’s Lost Year” and “Blind Into Baghdad.” These painstaking, point-by-point accounts of how the Bushies went into Iraq show how the Bush Regime has needlessly antagonized most of our allies with its hubris and arrogance while treating Iraqis as nothing but props. Iraqis, to the Bushies, are the “White Man’s Burden.”

Take up the White Man’s burden–
Send forth the best ye breed–
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild–
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

Finally, Glenn says that John Kerry isn’t trying to get along with others:

I think that statements like this are more evidence that the Kerry campaign — or at least the Clinton folks running it — expects to lose. Hence, they don’t have to worry about who they’ll be working with, but they want to fire up the anti-Bush base. That doesn’t make it any less disgraceful to be going around uttering comments that might as well be designed to undermine America’s alliances, of course. This sort of stuff is appalling.

There are no words that can categorize Glenn’s statement. Chutzpah is as close as I can get. Kerry’s statements undermine America’s alliances? We’ve endured four years of Bush’s “kiss my ass” attitude to the rest of the world, and suddenly Glenn is concerned because Kerry’s statements undermine America’s alliances?

Unbelievable.