It used to be that, if someone made a public pronouncement that was incorrect, the proper thing to do was to apologize. Nowadays, if one is wrong, one is allowed to go on being wrong, and ups the ante by being wrong about why he or she was wrong in the first place.

This is known as the Kristol Method.

Entertaining as our dear Megan’s boneheaded piece may be, take a gander at the Comments. They’re a regular Laff Riot!

captphealy: indeed, and those of us who were right all along remain dirty fucking hippies who can’t be trusted and whose opinions (even when we constitute a substantial majority of the population) can be dismissed with a snarl and a ”so?”

It makes life so much easier for several key categories of players: 1) pundits, 2) war criminals, 3) wankers, and 4) Bill Kristol, who gets extra special noogie points for falling into several — if not all — categories at once.

Tsk, tsk. Haven’t you old-time hippies learned anything? It’s “Rainin’ McCain” is how they roll. Hard core. ‘Zona style.

You’re not only catastrophically stupid, you’re catastrophically ugly as well.

God Bless You, Ms. McArdle.

Please shut up.

For the love of god, please shut up.

Please.

From MM’s lovely comments section:

thoreau wrote: Better question: How many more innocent foreigners, people who were never, ever a threat to you, will have to die before you contemplate the possibility that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is a failure?
That’s not a better question; it’s another biased test designed to reinforce your prejudices with no respect for context. Let’s stick with the first one.

Yes, yesssss…….. that question is deeply flawed. Give the man another question, please. How about…. lessee….. “It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice……….”

Not a question, you say? To quote Dick Cheney:

“So?”

If you read One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest but did not see the movie, the above is your image of Nurse Ratchet.
The correct response to pontificating ad nauseum on the benefits of the Iraq colonization is to apologize profusely for being a war criminal then crawling under a rock for a few decades.

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out recently, when it comes to apologizing for your wrongness on the Iraq War, John Cole got it right:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9942

Of course, Cole is a FORMER rethug, nevertheless, his post should be emailed to all wingnuts who can’t bring themselves to say “Jeebus, did I screw up”.

BTW, if you think Kristol is pathetic, check out the newly minted “Fixed News Contributor” Karl Rove. According to the “architect”, not only was the invasion spot on, but it’s going swimmingly over there! The surge is working, blah, blah, blah. He ain’t gonna be doing a John Cole, evah!

why the fuck do people read her ?

Re lori @ 8
“As Glenn Greenwald pointed out recently, when it comes to apologizing for your wrongness on the Iraq War, John Cole got it right:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=9942″

Thanks for that.
Hillary might have swept the primaries had she adopted that post as her campaign platform.

Fuck John Cole and his apology. Let him die with Bush. He’s only 37. He should enlist so someone who never wanted to be there in the first place can be relieved in Iraq. They are there thanks to people like Cole. I’m not ready to forgive him. He’s now a Youstabee. The man was a traitor to the constitution in the first place, now he’s a traitor to the traitors. I should trust him? Not.

No chance for redemption, Bobwan? Seems a shame, Cole rights very well for our side.

‘Writes’ not rights, dammit!

I’m personally not casting stones at anyone. I’ve made mistakes and do believe in redemption. It’s between John Cole and the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster as to what his penance shall be.

He should enlist so someone who never wanted to be there in the first place can be relieved in Iraq.

There is no draft. No one is in the military who didn’t want to be there.

Yes and no. Thomas Young of “Body of War”: “We Didn’t Volunteer Where You Sent Us to Go”. I.e., he signed up for Afghanistan and knew that Iraq was wrong. Signing up for Afghanistan was his volunteering; going to Iraq was a draft.