the lies come screaming out at us. Remember Bush and Cheney saying the Americans would be greeted as heroes, Iraq would become a model for democracy in the Middle East in short order, and Iraqi oil would pay for Iraqi reconstruction? Remember that?

And now T. B. is saying,

"If Iraq negotiates the many pitfalls over the next ten to twenty years and winds up a democratic, individualist society, the Left will respond with "so what?"

The "NEXT TEN TO TWENTY YEARS"? And how may billions upon billions of dollars of American taxpayer money? And how many more American lives?

When would even a True Believer conclude they were lied to? That GWB & Co. didn't know what they were talking about, just wanted to invade, just wanted the oil, wanted some Biblical relief for Israel, and that Iraq is the very definition of quagmire.

How many Americans are going to have to die for this folly?

And when will they admit that to keep a country like Iraq together, or the former, read FORMER Yugoslavia, it takes a Saddam or Tito, or American occupation?

After a while blind loyalty becomes complete folly. And it's been a long, long while. Even the blind should be able to see.

Arf