The Democrats do have a clue, they just also have the unassailable belief that everything will always be okay when they’re in power again, and anything they screw up now can be fixed later, because they’re the presumptive leaders. It’s all about beating Bush (which is worthwhile since he’s screwing everything up so much, see comments in Rove Strikes II). They doubly can’t stand the idea that these Serious Times will put a Republican in a good light, all the more reason to fight that much harder to get rid of him so they can handle it. If they were in power, they’d sound like they sounded in the 90s, when they were in power, which is all completely the opposite of how they sound now. Except even when they sound right they’re still wrong and still got us into this mess.

And as for wf, he’s completely right. This is serious stuff, but they see it as a political dance. (And don’t get me started on that ridiculous column Peggy Noonan wrote the other week that some Republicans actually liked)

Anyway, you’ll always have an ally down under.

Much of the planet will conclude that America in the end always abandons its allies for reasons of domestic politics. They will point to South Vietnam as the other example (yes, even those who screamed “Hands off Vietnam” are not above using that example).

Who will want to be an ally to that nicer, humbler US? Even a Democrat administration will come to regret what their ideological stooges have done to weaken America´s image abroad. Perhaps they will see why politics should have stopped at the waters edge.

What used to be the mantra? “We cannot go it alone”? But how many beleaguered nations and populations would not rather cast their lot with those second rate powers who are doing fine by going it alone, because they are sending a strong signal that they will have to be dealt with four years hence, when nobody knows who will be in the White House by then.

You would think that Hitchen´s mortal enemies, the proponents of Realpolitik, understood that mechanism even if they do not generally care about third world peoples.