beg the world's forgiveness

* wolcott: "To earn its rightful date on the calendar, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq should be a day of remembrance on which conscientious Americans wear mourning colors and beg the world's forgiveness, and Iraqis' forgiveness most of all."

* ""Imagine what would happen if it were announced tomorrow in the headlines of the papers of America and throughout the world that Rumsfeld was fired," (biden) told CNN.
"It would energize, energize the rest of the world, to be willing to help us. It would energize American forces, it would energize the political environment. Yes, he should step down."" (link)

* emptywheel: "But if Hadley were Mr. X (or Woodward's source), then the rest of this motion would be one giant set-up to frame State, from Powell on down to Grossman (FWIW, no one seems to know what to do with the September 30 Powell comment, but then most people aren't reading the motion itself). Or perhaps frame is too strong. Perhaps just a plan to sow doubt about Armitage."

* viget in the comments:

"In short, even though (ledeen) advocates looking at the situations and the problems that lead to those situations and understanding them, rather than blaming the "idiot" who happened to be calling the shots, his own prescriptions seem to belie this advice. Namely, Bush needs to shuffle up his cabinet and get the "right" people in there. In other words, he won't repudiate the big ideas, but seems to think if *he* were in charge, he would do it right.

This is a peculiar disease amongst conservatives of all stripes, the idea that it's not the ideology that's flawed, but rather the execution. "If only I were in charge...." Yet, it seems no matter which conservative we put in charge, they always seem to f*** it up, and are surprised when they do."

he has more on ledeen.