Either Way, You Lose

From Kevin Drum, our political animal at The Washington Monthly:

And of course, serious criticism has been brewing for quite a while in the ranks of influential neocons, originally the most enthusiastic supporters of the "democracy at gunpoint" school of international relations.

So: support for Bush's vapid, gentleman's-C approach to war is now rapidly declining among our allies, among the uniformed military, and among hawkish neocons. Liberals were mostly against the war to begin with, and moderates increasingly think it was a mistake too.

So who's left? There's National Review, which still clings to the Bush-as-rockjawed-leader storyline, but that seems to be about it.

Bottom line: if you were against the idea of transforming the Middle East via war, you should be against Bush because he had the wrong idea. Conversely, if you were in favor of transformation you should be against Bush for making such a total hash of the idea.

However, if the reality is that you don't seriously care about the war at all, but instead harbor only a fuming, obsessive desire to keep Democrats out of office at all costs, Bush is your man. I wonder how many of those people there are?