Irrelevance Here . . .(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)

Politics: Tom Daschle's swipe at the war effort is more of a probe for a soft spot in the president's armor than an offer of constructive criticism.

"I don't think the success has been overstated, but the continued success, I think, is still somewhat in doubt," the Senate majority leader said Thursday.

Can anyone imagine a senator making similar remarks less than 180 days after Pearl Harbor? Early on, the U.S. did little in response to the sneak attack. Within weeks, the Japanese also took Wake Island and Guam, and virtually routed the Philippines. The Doolittle Raid on Japan in April 1942, more than four months after the Pacific Fleet was shattered, was about the only good news that Americans received from the Pacific in the first months of the war.

Almost 60 years later, the Bush White House thrashes al-Qaida out of Afghanistan within a few months, and the president still gets the business from his political opponents. Daschle should familiarize himself with history. Then he could scold, if he still felt it was merited.

This is about politics, though, not history and reason. Daschle's unseemly comments were divisive -- and the Republican backlash severe -- which they were clearly meant to be. With the midterm elections eight months away, Daschle needs to poison President Bush's strong popularity if his party has any hope of gaining seats in Congress.

But the economy is recovering. And public confidence in the Democrats' handling of foreign affairs is falling while trust in the Republicans grows (see IBD/TIPP Poll on the far right). Things must seem mighty bleak to the party leaders.

The day before Daschle's sermonette, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Democratic chairman of the profligate Senate Appropriations Committee, groused that the "extraordinary price tag for the initial foray into a war that, as the ...