REFLECTIONS: “None shall question the moral integrity of the weeping baby”

Next reflection, courtesy good ol’ Richard Cohen:

In the following days, as the horror (of 9/11) started to be airbrushed — no more bodies plummeting to the sidewalk — the anthrax letters started to come, some to people I knew. And I thought, No, I’m not going to sit here passively and wait for it to happen. I wanted to go to “them,” whoever “they” were, grab them by the neck, and get them before they could get us. One of “them” was Saddam Hussein. . .

OK, this is obviously going to end well. . .

I was miserably wrong in my judgment and somewhat emotional, and whenever my resolve weakened, as it did over time, I steadied myself by downing belts of inane criticism from the likes of Michael Moore or “realists” like Brent Scowcroft, who had presided over the slaughter of the Shiites. I favored the war not for oil or empire (what silliness!) or Israel but for all the reasons that made me regret Bosnia, Rwanda, and every other time when innocents were being killed and nothing was done to stop it. I owe it to Tony Judt for giving me the French ex-Stalinist Pierre Courtade, who, wrongheaded though he might have been, neatly sums it all up for me: “You and your kind were wrong to be right; we were right to be wrong.”
(My emphasis.)

You know this whole line of argument, like, Well I was wrong on every significant point, and my poor judgment has led to the deaths of thousands of innocent people, but that very same poor judgment PROVES I’m a better person than you?

THAT DOESN’T DRIVE ME UP THE WALL AT ALL.

What? Wall? Me? Driving up it? Driving up what? The wall? Huh? No way, I don’t know what you’re talking about.