Joe Klein tackles Charles Krauthammer’s Weekly Standard essay. Krauthammer writes that "Iraq is a prize--we can debate endlessly whether it was worth the cost--of great strategic significance that the administration seems to have no intention of exploiting in its determination to execute a full and final exit." Klein interjects:
A prize! Sounds sort of like Churchill in his most demented colonial moments: India, the jewel in the crown! (The fact that a duly elected Iraqi government wants us to leave is ignored.) Krauthammer’s sort of imperialisma brutal and patronizing neo-colonialismhas never sat well with the American people.
This causes Pete Wehner to call Joe Klein insane and Klein thanks Wehner for the clarifying remarks.