Meanwhile, Prima Donna, uh, I mean Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is whining that Vice President Cheney "questioned [her] patriotism":

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday phoned President Bush to air her complaints over Vice President Dick Cheney's comments that the Congressional Democrats' plan for Iraq would "validate the Al Qaeda strategy."

    Pelosi, who said she could not reach the president, said Cheney's comments wrongly questioned critics' patriotism and ignored Bush's call for openness on Iraq strategy.

    "You cannot say as the president of the United States, 'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country," the speaker said.


Here is what Cheney actually said:

    I think, in fact, if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we'll do is validate the al Qaeda strategy. The al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people. In fact, knowing they can't win in a stand-up fight, try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit. I think that's exactly the wrong course to go on. I think that's the course of action that Speaker Pelosi and Jack Murtha support. I think it would be a huge mistake for the country.


Nothing about their patriotism there. He said they were espousing bad policies, but he offered no opinion or speculation about their motives for doing so.

It's arguably true that Cheney accuses Pelosi and Murtha of, as she puts it, "acting against the national security of our country." However, Pelosi has, herself, made that charge against Bush and Cheney:

    The news report on the National Intelligence Estimate is further proof that the war in Iraq is making it harder for America to fight and win the war on terror.

    Five years after 9/11 and Osama bin Laden is still free and not a single terrorist who planned 9/11 has been caught and brought to justice. President Bush should read the intelligence carefully before giving another misleading speech about progress in the war on terrorism.


In other words, Pelosi claimed that the president's policies have helped al Qaeda and made us less safe (a common charge among Democratic opponents of the Iraq effort). Why is Cheney's statement improper if Pelosi's was not?