Denial

Andrew Sullivan 12/2/06

There is a mood on the right at this moment that is not entirely rational. They are lashing out at the people who can rescue them from the folly of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld policy in Iraq. They are viciously attacking those who have had the temerity to expain why they lost the last election. And they are throwing the vilest of epithets at James Baker. Please. This is not 1991. They are as graceless in defeat now as they were hubristic in premature victory three years ago. Or to put it more precisely, they are exactly what National Review accuses the Baker-Hamilton Commission of being: "driven by their own internal dynamics rather than by any connection to the real world."

It's over, guys. Your beloved Bush administration botched this so badly it's irrecoverable. You enabled them. You never fully took them on when it would have counted - and you trashed those of us who did. You knew this before the 2004 election and still cynically played the anti-Kerry card for all it was worth, telling yourselves you could sway Rummy after the election. Well, you couldn't and you didn't. Your policy was sabotaged by a defense secretary who never believed in it and by a president too weak and out-of-it to rein him in. Get over yourselves and recognize that this dream has died. And we have to fight the nightmare we now face rather than pretend your dream is still even on life-support. That's the patriotic responsibility at this point. And no, I'm not impugning your patriotism. I'm asking you to place it before your shattered dreams.