In an overlong blog entry, the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin purports to be fact-checking Vice President Cheney's recent comments on terrorism. Along the way, Froomkin quotes Rep. John Murtha:

"Just because the president, just because the White House says there's going to be more terrorism if we withdraw doesn't make it so. He said there's going to be weapons of mass destruction. They said oil was going to pay for it. They said there was an al Qaeda connection. That's not necessarily true. I predict the opposite. I think there will be less terrorism. We've become the target. We're the ones that have become the enemy."

Later, Froomkin offers this observation:

Cheney's speech was full of the rhetorical devices that White House speechwriters are fond of.

There was the straw-man argument:

Cheney: "It is a dangerous illusion to suppose that another retreat by the civilized world would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone."

I haven't heard any war critics make that argument.

Reread the Murtha quote above. Apparently Froomkin doesn't always hear the comments he quotes.