Buyer's Remorse?

Now that the facts on the ground in Iraq have been incontrovertably revealed for the disaster that it is, what's a poor neocon to do? Bascally head for the exits as fast as possible, leaving BushCo to stand alone in the midst of the wreakage. How fascinating. The loudest, most intellectually compelling cheerleaders for this International Katrina have now exited with all the grace and aplomb of a chimpanzee on roller skates. What's especiallty stunning is how personal its all become. Even the most hardcore of the neocons is now castigating the Last Crusader, Dead-Eye Dick, Rummy von Doom, and of course, Madame Mendacity in terms that would have been unimagineable 6 months ago. Would-be triumphalist Oracles such Nial Ferguson, Richard Perle, Ken Adelman, David Frum, Bill Kritsol, and the whole bunch are now cringing Cassandras pulling out their hair while decrying nightmare end of Western civilzation scenarios. Words such as incompetence, dysfunctional, delusional, sychophantic, and bubbled, are now forefront in their public pronouncements.

To wit: Michael Leeden of the AEI: "Ask yourself who the most powerful people in the White House are. They are women who are in love with the president: Laura [Bush], Condi, Harriet Miers, and Karen Hughes." Bush as momma's boy. There's an interesting view of the Swaggerin Sarsaparila Kid.

Or better, from the Prince of Darkness (Richard Perle) himself: "In the administration that I served [he was an assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan], there was a one-sentence description of the decision-making process when consensus could not be reached among disputatious departments: 'The president makes the decision.' [Bush] did not make decisions, in part because the machinery of government that he nominally ran was actually running him. The National Security Council was not serving [Bush] properly. He regarded [then National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice] as part of the family."

Adelman himself points to what was the watershed moment for the disillusionment of the neocons: "The most dispiriting and awful moment of the whole administration was the day that Bush gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former C.I.A. director George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and Coalition Provisional Authority chief Jerry [Paul] Bremer—three of the most incompetent people who've ever served in such key spots. And they get the highest civilian honor a president can bestow on anyone! That was the day I checked out of this administration. It was then I thought, There's no seriousness here, these are not serious people. If he had been serious, the president would have realized that those three are each directly responsible for the disaster of Iraq." Of course I remember this same Ken Adelmen responding with joy on the Sunday talk shows when it was announced that "Jerry" Bremmer was going to be pro-consul for Iraq over the body of Jay Garner. Well so be it. Memory is a funny thing when you're an armchair quarterback eh Kenny boy? Hard to remember which calls you actually made vs. which ones you did in hindsight..

So this is the way their world ends - not just with a bang but whimper too. As Samual Taylor Coleridge said "Experience informs us that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate." And so we have it - the last "intellectual" gasp of the political Right of the 20th century - spreading morality and virtue through the barrel of a gun - is snuffed out by the Heckuva Job Mayberry Machiavellis in the sands of Iraq. And with the religious Right in total disarray - read Ted Haggard, Mark Foley - might we finally be seeing a severe diminishing of the Right in US politics? Not likely - remember Richard Perle is actually a registered democrat. And with such feckless Dems as Hilary and Joe Lieberman running around, I'd expect the neocons to regroup and wait for the next full moon....sadly, the Fat Lady hasn't sung yet and somebody will have to answer the question: "Who lost Iraq?" and it won't be the neocons doing the answering.