A CONSENSUS, FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH. Kevin Drum is optimistic about the emergence of a new consensus encompassing most everyone "outside of the neocon crazies and the rabid partisans." Sadly, the governance of the country has been entrusted to neocon crazies and rabid partisans. This afternoon, for example, Rich Lowry penned one of the most chilling phrases I've ever read: "one pro-Israel hawk in the adminsitration I was talking to this morning very much shares Krauthammer's view. . . " -- no good could possibly come from having people agree with Krauthammer.
He's one of -- if not the -- most genuinely pernicious people on the American intellectual scene. A forceful polemicist, blessed with the ability to engage in staggering levels of dishonesty on behalf of shockingly wrongheaded ideas. Or, as the vice president of the United States put it, "a man I admire very much . . . one great American . . . a superior intellect."
This is the reality of the situation. Wrack your brain for a single good reason why we should ban U.S. government officials from talking to Syria's ambassador to the United States. Right. "We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it." That's the reality of the situation our country faces. What's more, the big choice facing the Republican Party is whether they'll nominate a Bush clone in 2008, or else strike out in a new direction with the more hawkish John McCain.
--Matthew Yglesias
