Iraq

Stunning admissions of the day by Michael Ignatieff in The New York Times Magazine:

Liberals can't bring themselves to support freedom in Iraq lest they seem to collude with neoconservative bombast. Meanwhile, antiwar ideologues can't support the Iraqis because that would require admitting that positive outcomes can result from bad policies and worse intentions. Finally there are the ideological fools in the Arab world and even a few here at home who think the ''insurgents'' are fighting a just war against American imperialism. All this makes you wonder when the left forgot the proper name for people who bomb polling stations, kill election workers and assassinate candidates. The right name for such people is fascists.

And what about the plan to "internationalize" the conflict that Senators Kerry and Daschle supported?  Ignatieff:

As I was told by one suave European observer, with a look of self-satisfaction on his face, all that remains is the final act. We are waiting, he said, for the helicopters to lift off the last Americans from the roofs of the green zone in Baghdad.

Yes, the 'Iraq as Vietnam' master metaphor has been invoked incessantly over the last year and many people are heavily invested in it.  It reminds me of what Christopher Hitchens once called "The vile spectacle of Democrats rooting for bad news in Iraq and Afghanistan."