Responsible Democracy

I stopped in to visit my grandmother at her nursing care facility yesterday and saw that President Bush was on the telly, and noted the following piece from the speech (which you can read in full at the White House web site):

One of the blessings of our free society is that we can debate these issues openly, even in a time of war. Most of the debate has been a credit to our democracy, but some have launched irresponsible charges. They say that we act because of oil, that we act in Iraq because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. Some of the most irresponsible comments about manipulating intelligence have come from politicians who saw the same intelligence we saw, and then voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein. These charges are pure politics.

And it made me curious as to how the adminstration deems a statement or an individual as being irresponsible? Is it just because an individual questions the motives of the administration, which is famous for its tight-lipped secrecy and vague answers to questions ("9/11 changed everything...", etc.). Salon's War Room (which is written by Tim Grieve) brings up some other instances of administration folk (and a Democratic friend of the adminstration) who have joined this war against the irresponsible:

Who, exactly, is allowed to be critical of the Bush administration these days?

We know it's not the Democrats. As Joe Lieberman said the other day, Democrats who distrust Geoge W. Bush need to "acknowledge he'll be commander in chief for three more years" because "we undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."

We know it's not senators who believe that the Bush administration manipulated prewar intelligence. As Dick Cheney explained last month, it's "irresponsible" for them to speak out about their "dishonest and reprehensible" views.

We know it's not the United Nations. As John Bolton said the other day in remarks intended for the U.N.'s high commissioner on human rights, "It is inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we're engaged in in the war on terror with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."

We know it's not peace activists or other antiwar groups. As NBC News reported this week, the Pentagon is monitoring even the smallest gatherings as "threats" and "suspicious incidents."

And now we know it's not our neighbors to the north, either. As Josh Marshall notes, the U.S. ambassador to Canada told Canadians this week that they should tone down their anti-Bush rhetoric -- or else. "It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and constantly criticize your friend and your No. 1 trading partner," David Wilkins said at the Canada Club in Ottawa. "But it is a slippery slope, and all of us should hope that it doesn't have a long-term impact on our relationship."