Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Him Now

Hanging judge Matthew Yglesias on the political morality of Andrew Sullivan:

Against The Odds | TPMCafe: Andrew Sullivan reminds us that he doesn't

support any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq

which

puts [him] in the excruciating position of supporting a war conducted by an administration whose key players are manifestly incompetent and reckless.

In addition, he doesn't

have an alternative master-plan to win either

and while there are various policy shifts he would support,

as long as Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are running the show, I cannot say I am optimistic that such a sane strategy will be employed or that it will succeed.

They say the definition of insanity is trying the same thing and expecting different results... as Andrew also says... his point of view ... is fairly widely held... by the saner Republicans as well as your hawkish Democrats. It's also a little crazy....

In January 2009 when a new administration takes office, the war will have been going on for five and a half years, virtually the entire span of time between Hitler's invasion of Poland and the Nazis' surrender.... Andrew doesn't believe we'll actually make any serious amount of progress between now and then....

[A]... fundamental point of political morality -- it's wrong, seriously wrong and seriously irresponsible, to support military action that has no likely prospects of success. It's one thing to ask young men and women to kill and die for a good cause. It's another thing entirely to ask them to kill and die as a token of your support for a good cause.

Clearly, my first-choice scenario for the world would be one in which the nominal goals of American Iraq policy -- killing terrorists, preventing a civil war, building a stable liberal democracy -- are achieved. But I can't support the war -- can't say it was a good idea to launch it, and can't say I think it's a good idea to continue it -- precisely because I don't think the war is... stands a good chance of accomplishing... and... ever did stand a good chance of accomplishing [these goals].

Under the circumstances, a symbolic stand in favor of what the war's supposed to be about is, in practice, not much more than a stand in favor of continued torture and pointless bloodshed.