The Bonfire Of The Vain Punditocracy

Ezra's on fire. Go read the whole thing, I promise it's worth it.

And so began the Pundit Purge of '07 -- the first time in recent history that the predictive failure of an ideology led to actual occupational consequences for its peddlers.

Historians differ on what, precisely, sparked the upheaval, but no small number point to a December 10th column by David Brooks, which pretended to peer back at America's foolish withdrawal from Iraq from some point far in the future, when it was well understood that the folly of exit had triggered what Brooks termed "the Second Thirty Years' War." Experts differ on what proved so infuriating about this column: Some name Brooks' total avoidance of better solutions for a disastrous conflict he'd helped create; others point to the intellectual sleight-of-hand that identified the withdrawal from Iraq, rather than the invasion of it, as the start of the disaster. And yet others believe the column's conceit was so insufferably irritating and superficial that reprisal was inevitable.

A marvellously barbed puncturing of the whole failed neocon punditocracy and their rush to line up behind what one of Ezra's commenters rightly describes as the "stand and bleed" strategy now being pushed.

The smartest thing to do when you're not winning a fight is to stand there and slowly bleed out. It's, um, really intimidating, and it's a lot better than, you know, stepping back and living to fight another day.

And another commenter, following the theme, sets the scene for a new title for the Bushevik misadventure - Operation Black Knight.

BLACK KNIGHT: Right, I'll do you for that!
ARTHUR: You'll what?
BLACK KNIGHT: Come 'ere!
ARTHUR: What are you going to do, bleed on me?
BLACK KNIGHT: I'm invincible!
ARTHUR: You're a loony.
BLACK KNIGHT: The Black Knight always triumphs!
Have at you! Come on then.
[whop]
[ARTHUR chops the BLACK KNIGHT's other leg off]
BLACK KNIGHT: All right; we'll call it a draw.