Mona Charen: Democratomyopia

Republicans have, of course, been wrong about everything about Iraq thus far. But conservatives do not admit error. The Bush dead-enders are still trying to defend every single one of Dear Leader's actions. He is, to hear them tell it, guilty only of--if anything--caring too much.

So it's beyond tedious to hear these immoral, incompetent, dogmatic morons carp about the Democrats' lack of perfection with regard to Iraq.

Problem is, they do have some points. Mona Charen makes a few of them here--mixed in among boilerplate conservative nonsense.

It IS hard to believe that Dems don't think that it's likely to get worse after we leave. It might not--and God knows we all hope that it doesn't--but odds are that it will. If you're not having nightmares about Cambodia, perhaps you should be.

And, as Charen points out, it's rather puzzling why Dems are arguing that our presence in Iraq is a catalyst for violence--but our presence in Afghanistan is not.

But it IS hard to take the Bushies seriously when they continue to deliver their partisan lines with super-dogmatic confidence even when they've been wrong about everything up to this point. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I wish Dems would take some of these points more seriously. Of course if Republicans had an ounce of intellectual integrity, a modicum of humility, or the sense that God gave a goose, and if they really wanted people to listen to them, they'd admit that they are the ones responsible for screwing this particular pooch beyond all recognition, ask for some measure of forgiveness, and then try to make their case with something at least vaguely resembling a civil tone. But NRO-style Republicans seem incapable of saying anything in any tone other than one of smug, self-satisfied infallibility. And those who take such a tone are obviously not taking the debate seriously. So I think the rest of us might be excused for not taking them seriously.