At Long Last . . .

Glenn Reynolds engages in more desparate blame shifting over the failed Iraq War. "Well, [Democrats] can vote to end it themselves. But they'll be responsible for what comes next. " This isn't true. The Democrats share in the blame, because (with a few honorable exceptions like Robert Byrd) they failed to strenuously oppose this misbegotten war. But the lion's share of the responsibility falls upon the Bush administration, the Republican party and their media/intellectual allies, including National Review, The Weekly Standard and Reynolds.

Reynolds approvingly links to a contemptable Mickey Kaus post accusing the New York Times of being in favor of "abandon[ing] Iraqis to 'genocide' just because the resulting deaths can be blamed on Bush." The Times editorial, of course, say or implies no such thing:

At first, we believed that after destroying Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures, the United States was obliged to try to accomplish some of the goals Mr. Bush claimed to be pursuing, chiefly building a stable, unified Iraq. When it became clear that the president had neither the vision nor the means to do that, we argued against setting a withdrawal date while there was still some chance to mitigate the chaos that would most likely follow.

While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept promising breakthroughs -- after elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost.

. . .

One of Mr. Bush’s arguments against withdrawal is that it would lead to civil war. That war is raging, right now, and it may take years to burn out. Iraq may fragment into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite republics, and American troops are not going to stop that from happening.

. . .

The Times' position is based on the fairly obvious reality that the U.S. can accomplish nothing more by fighting in Iraq. For the shrinking number of holdouts who continue to support the war, the need to deny the obvious is paramount. They could give Paris Hilton lessons in shamelessness.