The distinction that Glenn is implicitly making and that Cest ignores is between the moral and the utilitarian.

For the Iraq debacle to be judged a success on utilitarian grounds, there merely has to be some net benefit such that the slaughter and mayhem incurred exceeds the slaughter and mayhem avoided, or some such calculus.

I happen to think that the ledger does not now and will never support that conclusion. That is in large part an empirical argument. But that is not the argument (I think) Glenn is making.

I believe that the invasion was wrong -- not (only) because I thought it would fail, but because it was morally wrong. That is not an empirical argument. Thus it will not change even if a Vesuvius of Ponies issues forth.

The "Daddy Party" folks -- the brave Yellow Elephants and chicken hawks, who are the only ones who can protect us from such horrors -- are scared to death. And they see only one way to retain power: make others afraid too. The very act of scaring us only heightens their own heebie-jeebies, and the feedback loop spins further and further out of control.

I saw a few minutes of "Thirteen Days" on the teevee yesterday. The Cuban Missile Crisis? THAT was scary. Fearing the conversion of the U.S. in to an Islamist state? Laugh-out-loud funny.

This is indeed one of your most important posts, Glenn. You skewer the press and Republicans as well as anyone, but until now much of that criticism has been aimed at villains previously identified.

Now you are blazing a new trail, and it is impressive to watch.

As previous commenters noted, there are many reasons for the dysfunction you identify, including financial self-interest.

But perhaps the most pernicious aspect of this is the way their herd instinct leads to the complete lack of consequences for disaster. Because the entire priesthood has transgressed, none will step forward and call for judgment against a fellow sinner. Like a whirlwind of anchovies, they seek safety by swimming nose-to-tail in endless circles.

The good news, if there is any, is that I suspect these fools, being unused to such a harsh spotlight, are less likely than the MSM to ignore your criticism. So perhaps they will be the weak link in the chain of fools.

Americans overwhelmingly wanted change last fall. Within our system (that is, short of revolution) what we can do to express our disagreement is vote. We disagreed; we voted. And nothing important has changed.

Thus I think we must accept that at least one of the following is true:

1) The Democrats we elected want what we want, but they are so incompetent that they cannot bring it about;

2) The Democrats we elected are effectively (based on actions, not words) indistinguishable from the Republicans, and thus have no real desire to be any more effective than they are.

And the universal acquiescence in the pro-Bush narrative about the polls about the pols confirms the complicity of the traditional press. It ll reminds me of the way college administrators look at protesting students -- with a dismissive "We'll be here long after they move on" sneer.

That's me in a nutshell; what is making you depressed these days?

The vacuous nonsense that Kornblut parrots is exactly what I would expect from gossiping high school students. And that is the plane on which the punditocracy exists. Whenever I make the mistake of watching political "coverage" on TV (Countdown often, but not always excepted), I am struck by how facile, immature and ignorant it is. The flavor of it all is eerily similar to notes passed in home room:

"Barack said Hillary has cooties."

"No he didn't"

"Yes he did! So I told him he isn't invited to my party anymore."

Suffer through 10 minutes of Hardball, or anything on CNN, and you will see as much discussion of the substance of the charges batted around as you will of the Code of Hammurabi. Like giggling 9th-graders, they live for the game, and are oblivious to the backdrop of real consequences.

When they eagerly run down the "he said, she said" rabbit hole, the obvious follow-up questions like "well, is it true?" are neither asked nor answered. I guess the Kewl Kids don't have to bother with The Google or, heaven forfend, Lexis/Nexis.

The problem does not seem to be one of lack of intelligence, but of astounding immaturity. And, perhaps, lack of seriousness, to coin a phrase.

We can all fantasize about our preferred choices: Danforth, Comey, Fitzgerald, etc. But the next move in this chess game is Dubya's. And the reasons why the country desperately needs an independent AG are exactly the reasons why this Administration will never offer us one. Appointing Fitz would be a form of suicide, and their self-preservation instinct seems far too strong for that to happen.

So I think it is a safe bet that Bush will nominate someone we will not like. Then what? If the Milquetoast Brigade does its usual thing, Bush obviously wins (I am not surrendering, just stating the obvious). If the Judiciary Committee rejects the first lackey, we will toast their newfound backbones, but then what? That only gets us somewhere if the next nominee is better, and I find it hard to imagine that it will play out that way. Bush gets pretty good mileage out of excoriating Democratic obstruction, and suffers no penalty if the post remains unoccupied as a result. And the man is rather stubborn, in case no one noticed.

I will yet again implore my chowder-headed Senator (Feinstein) to do the right thing here. But as awful as Gonzo was, I just don't see how this ends up where we want it to go.