To Ann's credit, selectively calls us librul types to account for overestimating the casualties and difficulties the U.S. would face prior to its invasion of Iraq. Note I say "selectively", cuz, like, wow, is she glossing over a lot. Like, say, the insurgency, the civil war, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, Abu Ghraib, the incendiary role of Blackwater, Fallujah, the precarious state of areas where "progress" has been made, the dysfunctionality of the Iraqi government, the low level of political progress among the ethnic and tribal factions. etc., etc., etc.

How she accounts for the rosy picture Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, and Wolfowitz painted of post-invasion Iraq, I don't know. Or the misuse and fabrication of intelligence regarding WMD, the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's ties to Osama bin Laden, nuclear weapons, and the rest of the litany of lies, distortions, misreadings, and plainly wrong claims of the threat Hussein's regime posed to regional, global and American security.

As my good friend Barry put it to me the other day, "It feels like there is no point in arguing with the other side when you cannot expect them to respond in good faith." Amen, brother.