bait

noun:

1. food used to entice fish or other animals as prey.

   related terms: sitting duck. decoy. cannon fodder. chum.

2. our fighting men and women in iraq, thoughtfully served up on a platter for the bloodlust of our insatiable enemy.

   ... according to disgraced-clintonite-turned-pundit dick morris, who extolled the virtues of the occupation from the comfort and convenience of his studio desk at fox news:

i think that withdrawal from iraq, it obviously gives al qaeda a huge victory — huge victory. on the other hand, if we stay in iraq, it gives them the opportunity to kill more americans, which they really like. one of the things, though, that i think that the anti-war crowd has not considered, is that if we're putting the americans right within their [the terrorists’] arms’ reach, they don’t have to come to wall street to kill americans. they don’t have to knock down the trade center. they can do it around the corner, and convenience is a big factor when you’re a terrorist.

(btw dick, you may not have been told, but i heard that something may have already happened to the trade center ...)

you'll of course remember dick morris from his last appearance on this blog, when in the wake of hurricane katrina he boldly predicted that president bush's ratings "are gonna soar!"

if by "soar" he meant sore or sour, he's been vindicated.

but it may be that time of day when, like that proverbial stopped watch, dick might actually be onto something, since his bff in iraq, nominal al qaeda deputy ayman al-zawahiri, admitted that he knows too well where his care packages are coming from:

in a new video posted today on the internet, al qaeda's no. 2 man, ayman al zawahri, mocks the bill passed by congress setting a timetable for the pullout of u.s. troops in iraq. "this bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the american forces which we have caught in a historic trap," zawahri says in answer to a question posed to him an interviewer. continuing in the same tone, zawahri says, "we ask allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in washington and europe an unforgettable lesson."

and who says al qaeda aren't grateful?