Friday, October 19, 2007

Krauthammer's Razor: Pelosi Stupid and Incompetent

In a Washington Post Op-Ed Charles Krauthammer examines the motives behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi's efforts to insult our ally Turkey with a resolution condemning acts of genocide against the Armenians committed 90 years ago by the Ottoman Empire:
Was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's determination to bring this to a vote, knowing that it risked provoking Turkey into withdrawing crucial assistance to American soldiers in Iraq, a conscious (columnist Thomas Sowell) or unconscious (blogger Mickey Kaus) attempt to sabotage the U.S. war effort?
Turkey had already made it quite clear that passage of the resolution would be an insult that would result in jeopardizing our vital supply routes through that country to Iraq, and could precipitate Turkish military action against Kurds in northern Iraq.

Krauthammer offers this explanation of Pelosi's motive:
Is the Armenian resolution her way of unconsciously sabotaging the U.S. war effort, after she had failed to stop it by more direct means? I leave that question to psychiatry. Instead, I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.
I disagree. It's my opinion that Pelosi is, in addition to being stupid and incompetent, more than evil enough to have plotted this resolution, and its consequences, deliberately.