Great minds, etc.

The administration could defend itself by saying that "Israel won!" is propaganda necessary to avoid encouraging our enemies. I just don't think that a democracy can afford to put that high an emphasis on propaganda; my hypothesis is that we ultimately make a stronger impression on our enemies by our realistically dealing with challenges and problems.

Recall Asquith's wry joke about the Imperial General Staff in WW1: they kept 3 sets of casualty figures, one to deceive the public, one to deceive Parliament, and one to deceive themselves. Sounds familiar.

Israel and Hezbollah Both Declare VictoryJames Joyner An AP report on Israel begining its troop pullout from Lebanon includes this passage several paragraphs in:On Monday, both Israel and its main backer, the United States, portrayed Hezbollah as the l...

George Will finds the administration "eager to repel all but the delusional":

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry's belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates' debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

(How bad did it hurt Will to write those words?)

Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:

"The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren't for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It's like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn't work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

The official is correct that it is wrong "to think that somehow we are responsible -- that the actions of the jihadists are justified by U.S. policies." But few outside the fog of paranoia that is the blogosphere think like that. It is more dismaying that someone at the center of government considers it clever to talk like that. It is the language of foreign policy -- and domestic politics -- unrealism.

"Realism"--it's the new idealism!

JJ's take on the Israel-Hezbollah debacle is simply realist: Israel set out to accomplish X, failed to do so, and probably hurt both its own and the U.S.'s goals. An administration that can't see that, and that has to shred its own credibility rather than concede that any political opponent ever had a good point, is out of touch with reality.

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