John Edwards, the fourth monkey

When my kids were very little, their idea of hide and seek was to cover their eyes.  They operated on the principle that, if they couldn’t see me, I certainly couldn’t see them.  In other words, 18 month olds operated on the “three monkeys” principle.  That’s the one that goes “Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.”  I know some people who believe the three monkeys principle means that you shouldn’t gossip, listen to gossip or spy on your neighbors.  However, I’ve always understood it to mean that only people with the functional IQs of monkeys can think that, if you just shut down your senses, evil will go away.  It didn’t work in the 1930s, and it doesn’t work now.

Of course, that grim reality doesn’t stop the fourth monkey, John Edwards, who believes against all evidence that, if we simply stop paying attention to those nasty, bombing, beheading jihadists, they’ll just magically vanish:

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a “global war on terror,” calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists. In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a “bumper sticker” slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

“We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. “By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam.”

The man has just demonstrated (again) that his functional intelligence is up there with an 18 month old’s.  My kids, of course, grew up and learned that nothing goes away just because you close your eyes to it.  Edwards, however, doesn’t seem to be demonstrating that kind of useful learning curve.