Spider Holes

One interesting trope I'm noticing is conservatives refusing to admit the obvious -- the GOP's ill political fortunes have something or other to do with Iraq being this huge mess. Mark Kleiman catches Glenn Reynolds doing an "election pre-mortem" that totally neglects Iraq. Fred Barnes meanwhile has some fun with parentheses:

The Foley scandal did two things, both harmful to Republicans. It stopped Republican momentum in its tracks. (Also contributing to this were the negative spin on Iraq from Bob Woodward's book State of Denial and the faulty reporting on the National Intelligence Estimate.)

Right, it was "negative spin" and "faulty reporting" that put people in a bad mood as opposed to, say, the large-scale refugee flows prompted by massive sectarian violence. I mean, I suppose one could argue that even though there were no WMDs in Iraq and even though the invasion's made a hash of the country, you're still glad we invaded. But even if you think this, should it be so hard to concede that the war at least looks like a bad idea to most of us who lack the deep historical insight to see why this bloodbath was worth it?