And while some of the Marine Corps' finest were taking gunfire and dying, back at home, Sen. Teddy Kennedy wandered from his palatial Senate office on Capitol Hill to the plush and friendly surroundings of the Brookings Institute, a liberal Washington think tank, to unleash a verbal carpet bombing on the president of the United States.

... What is truly unfortunate is that those who hear the "echoes" of such pessimistic Pooh Bahs are the terrorists who are emboldened by it. It is also heard by young Americans who toppled a brutal dictator and liberated the people in "that unfortunate, miserable country" from an evil regime.

The murder of those four defense contractors was planned and phoned in to the Arab media beforehand so that the pictures broadcast around the world might have the same effect that the train bombing in Madrid had on the Spanish elections -- to instill fear and generate calls for retreat. Thus terrorists in Iraq who use bullets and bombs have now added a public relations component as another asset in their quiver. And their latest offensive, which combined murder and its broadcast on television, has apparently worked on people like Ted Kennedy and Bob Byrd.