Vanities unfair

dr. elsewhere here

Given Joseph's post below, it seems fairly pertinent to note the vast numbers of neocons now who are denying culpability in the Iraq debacle.

Vanity Fair has a teaser up as of this weekend excerpting from David Rose's Neo Culpa, interviews with various vocal neocons who are now not quite so, erm, shall we say insistent about the need to invade liberate Iraq.

The general tone of these excerpts is whiny CYA, and my favorite is Richard Perle's sniveling that he is "sick and tired" of the accusations that the Iraq nightmare is all the fault of the neocons, and his assertion that no one asked him how to go about implementing this presumably principled decision. Essentially, everyone blames the Bush administration for their failures of execution; the neocon vision remains in tact.

Not to be undone or taken out of context, National Review Online just published a couple of hours ago a set of their neocon rebuttals, replete with a Michael Ledeen screed. Or counter-screed, as he would no doubt prefer (indeed, he whines we really should be in Iran, like that would have gone so much better).

My my my, such noisy defensiveness. Well, I do suppose the discomfort of riding the fence can make a neocon even grumpier than normal. Especially given the exposure yesterday of 1999 war games that showed an invasion of Iraq would require at least 400,000 troops, and even then there would be no guarantee it would not end in chaos.

Still, you'd think they'd at least have mentioned the great achievement of absolution in Saddam's death sentence. But, nary a peep.

Still, you'd even think they'd be neither defensive nor accusing, instead defiant and imperious, were they in any way convinced the Republicans were going to retain both houses of Congress.