Connoisseurs of self-exculpation take note: Slate is featuring a forum this week – “Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War”
http://slate.msn.com/id/2093620/entry/2093641/
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Let's all put our Nostradamus caps on (similar to a beret but more, um, ethereal - in some way) and play the *predict the future* game.
These fellows - Berman, Friedman, Hitchens, Kaplan and the rest - have written a mountain of text in books, essays, articles, op-eds and so on saying essentially one thing: the West is engaged in a life or death struggle with *Islamo-fascism* (sounds like a drink, a blue one). *Now yes*, these tiny titans say, *the Bush administration offends our liberal sensibilities in a variety of ways but given the Islamo-fascist threat (chatter indicates they've perfected a time machine bomb that blasts your ass into the past), the eggs must be smashed (smashed!) to create the tasty omelette of global freedom.*
Here's the prediction: during the Slate forum, no one's going to back off from the central idea. The focus will be on how the Bush admin did a good thing but isn't following through correctly (look for this from Berman and Field Marshall Hitchens) or, on how the war against Iraq was an unecessary diversion from the essential war against the jihadi shadow ninjas of Islamo-fascism (now with more kicking and flipping).
In short, there'll be flabby derriere covering a-plenty but it will be hidden by a thick smokescreen of *we're-fighting-for-our-life* chatter.
DRM