We who support progressive principles are helped by the fact that conservatism is fundamentally weak -- not just the current conservative movement, but the whole enterprise.

Well, yes. When times are good, the most out-there forms of conservatism can be reasonably contained. Maybe. Try telling that to an Iraqi now living in Jordan on bread and water. But it's in times of chaos that "nice-guy" liberalism is most likely to be steamrollered by "me-first" conservatism. Uninformed people think Hitler sprang up out of the ground and took over Germany through the sheer power of his Evil. Not so. Germany was in a state of chaos beyond the imagination of a 21st-Century American and desperately needed a father-figure. Stalin didn't just take over Russia because no one else was around to do it. Russia was down to eating the soles of its own shoes when Stalin came on the scene.

The reason we need to take the wacko thought-processes of the right extremely seriously is that while today there is room in our culture for both sides to coexist, more or less, who says the good times are going to roll indefinitely? When they don't, those wacko ideas are going to appeal to a whole lot more people; it's our job to try to limit their availability and make sure better thinking -- that effectively addresses the fears and insecurities that drive people into a devil-take-the-hindmost pattern of thought -- is not only available but is the foundational principle of our culture.

And who, if anyone, is doing the statistical analysis on the effect upon the evaluations of success/failure/progress of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis getting the hell out of the country? Fewer people to kill might result in fewer killings, but that hardly counts as progress.

"The administration came to us and asked us to lie, but we said no."

I have only read the first posts of the hundreds on this topic, but I have to say I'm surprised at how GG is having to defend himself against charges that posting Hemingway's photo is ad hominem and just as "Jr. High" as Hemingway himself. Not so. What I see in that picture is not a guy as God made him, but as he made himself. Take Hemingway's basic physical type, run it through a serious regimen of physical exercise, give it some real physical challenge (even an Outward Bound course?), take those eyes and show them some horror, put that flabby expression through some real danger and have it come out the other side the winner -- you get the point. Mr. Hemingway, however God made him, would not look like the Sara-Lee-fed wanker his picture clearly shows him to be if he had ever done any of the things that a real tough guy does.

p.s.: my vote for title so far: "Codpiece Conservatives: Exploring the Myth of the Republican Macho Man"

It's just another example of modern Mind Over Matter: "I don't mind, and you don't matter."

"Well, society's position and the government position, and what the government ought to do to exercise the power of the federal government, is not necessarily the same thing,"

In other words, he feels about democracy the same way George Bush feels about democracy.

Is anyone factoring in the number of Iraqis who have left the country? Is it significant in the measurement of deaths? Fewer people should mean fewer deaths if the percentages stay the same, right? I'm no statistician...

Glenn wrote a book whose subtitle is: "How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." How true. But the good vs. evil mentality also created the Bush presidency. And the concept of "win-lose" in Iraq is another perfect example of how Rovian politics creates polar opposites, one with a desirable name and the other with an undesirable name -- and presents them as the only two choices available. "People! You wanna win or you wanna lose??!" Put that way, who's going to say, "We wanna lose!!" No one. But it's a completely false set of choices. There is no winning in Iraq, nor is there losing. Whatever the outcome, it will be complex, unpredictable and impossible to label with a single word. Historians will be arguing about it for decades. Anyway, you get my point. Anyone conducting a poll that says people believe the war "can be won" is conducting a dishonest poll.

These last two weeks, this has become simpler to point out, because. Biddle says 20 years. Petraeus says 10 and Jack Jones, on MTP today, says 5 years. (jayackroyd)

I assume everyone who watched noticed how Jones said, at one point when talking about the number of years we'd be there, "Our guess...um, our assessment was..." and continued to say four years, or maybe it was five. For one clear moment there, he was honest about all the assessments and predictions and strategies and various claims: it's all guesswork. The only thing worth admitting is that it's not a half-full glass or a half-empty glass but that it is a completely shattered glass and that no one knows what to do about it or what will happen if this, that or the other thing is done.