Verbal Momentum

Karl Rove Strikes Again
While watching Hannity and Colmes on Fox News last night cover John Kerry's pronouncement that our troops in Iraq are no better than terrorists it suddenly struck me: Karl Rove has made suckers out of the democrats again.
Remember how the Bush team kept strangely silent for months while democrats unleashed increasingly powerful attacks against Bush's Iraq policy and its results? Remember the agonizing questions about why Bush did not speak out in defense of his policy and its indisputable achievements in Iraq? The answer is in the phrase, verbal momentum.
What the heck is that? Well all right, I just made it up. But what it means here is the tendency to defend and even extend a position one has taken when it is first challenged, before the higher brain functions like logic have a chance to kick in. Of course the longer those higher brain functions take to kick in the further the position will be extended and with a lot of politicians that gives plenty of time to get way out in left field. Howard Dean and John Murtha spring to mind for example. I have a cousin who described this effect, after an argument with his wife, as his "out of body experience". "I was over here", he said, "and my mouth was over there still talking!"
The reason this is important is that there's a pretty fine line between vigorous opposition to your country's policy during war and behavior that most Americans regard as treason. Stay on one side of the line and your criticism drains support from your political opponents. Cross the line and you are suddenly in political no man's land. Now it's clear why the Bush team had to wait such an seemingly excessive length of time to respond. They had to wait while the democrats all slowly racheted up their rhetoric, until they were just barely on the "safe" side of the line. Then, when the Bush team finally responded, the susceptible democrats took the bait and jumped right over the line, driven by their own verbal momentum.
It's interesting to note that one politician, who pretty much everyone agrees is the Mr. Spock of the democratic party, didn’t fall for it. Of course with Hillary Clinton it's pretty hard to tell if she's one politician or two so the extra brainpower probably helped her see the trap sooner.
Anyway that's the idea. Karl Rove, master of timing and momentum, strikes again and we all get to watch the democrats crowd together on that last little twig way out at the end of the limb.