If We Win, We Win (also: ponies)

Today's moronic rightwing talking point is that we should ignore the overwhelming majority of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that the White House was so eager to cover up (see declassified excerpts here) as a partisan plot undertaken by the notorious left-wingers at the CIA, while simultaneously citing the NIE's conclusion that "Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight" as a decisive refutation of Democratic views on Iraq.

Seriously, people, think before you open your mouths and crack open your laptops.

Does anyone -- anyone -- on the right genuinely believe that those of us who favor withdrawal from Iraq do so because we don't think it would be a good idea to turn the country into a shining success? Of course we don't think that. We favor withdrawal because we don't believe that indefinite continuation of an open-ended military presence in Iraq is likely to generate success. The country has been doing this for three and a half years now and things aren't improving; they're getting worse. Nobody disputes the desirability of success; we dispute the notion that continuing to do the same things that aren't working now, and weren't working one year ago, and weren't working two years ago, are going to magically start working if we give it another year.