And Speaking Moral Vanity

Charles Krauthammer nicely sums up why the Democratic party has grown so shrill in recent years.

The Democrats' current disdain for George Bush reminds me of another chess master, Efim Bogoljubov, who once said, ``When I am White, I win because I am White'' -- White moves first and therefore has a distinct advantage -- ``when I am Black, I win because I am Bogoljubov.'' John Kerry is a man of similar vanity -- intellectual and moral -- and that spirit thoroughly permeates the Democratic Party.

Democrats feel a mixture of horror and contempt for the huddled masses -- so bovine, so benighted, so besotted with talk radio -- who made a king of an empty-headed movie star (Reagan, long before Arnold) and inexplicably want the Republicans' current nitwit leader to have a second term.

So what has this vanity and hatred yielded?

It is not often that a losing presidential candidate (Al Gore) compares the man who defeated him to both Hitler and Stalin. It is not often that a senior party leader (Edward Kennedy) accuses a sitting president of starting a war (``cooked up in Texas'') in order to gain political advantage for his re-election.