What Tristero at Hullabaloo says

My bold:

The Bush/Iraq war wasn't merely a bad idea. It was screaming yellow bonkers. It had no chance - none - of creating a positive situation. Ever. It is complete nonsense to claim "the invasion could have succeeded" if only competents had been in charge. Why? Competent people would never have invaded Iraq in the first place.

The tragedy we see today was a foregone conclusion. It was predicted again and again, by genuinely sober, reasonable people. The war supporters - all of them - were the hysterics. They wern't "idealists." They were naive, pie-in-the-sky types. After all, it was Richard Perle and David Frum who penned a book called "An End to Evil" - an utterly insane notion, as Anatol Lieven noted.

It is ominous to note the congealing of conventional wisdom around the "great idea, incompetent execution" meme (this review is hardly the only place it has appeared recently). It means that the public discourse remains monopolized by genuine clowns. Until more serious people are permitted to address the American public on a regular basis, the US will continue to blunder into future Bush/Iraqs, with catastrophic consequences.

We have to continuously repeat this. We told them, the world told them, but the neocons had been talking so long and so incestuously to themselves in their little oxygen-deprived club house, they were sure flowers and candy awaited them. Reality still has yet to set in.

And then they'll just blame the Democrats....