The heartbreak of Punditosis

The problem is bad and it’s getting worse. People, I’m talking about the reeking, paint-scorching intellectual halitosis that afflicts our nation’s political pundits. For years now they’ve been living on a diet of half-baked notions and undercooked information, warmed-over propaganda and tepid analysis. Add a soupcon of crappy prose, put it in the microwave and set it on heavy spin. The result comes rolling out of your TV sets on any given Sunday morning. Yep, that nasty smell like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft nightmare — it’s called Punditosis.

Unlike many afflictions, this one leaves the sufferer untroubled even as he inflicts suffering on those around him. Check out the one-man fogbank known as Fareed Zakaria as he searches for what used to be called “peace with honor,” only this time in Iraq:

[W]ith planning, intelligence, execution and luck, it is possible that the American intervention in Iraq could have a gray ending — one that is unsatisfying to all, but that prevents the worst scenarios from unfolding, secures some real achievements and allows the United States to regain its energies and strategic compass for its broader leadership role in the world.

Whew! Just what kind of ace does Fareed think the Bushies have up their collective sleeve that will accomplish this miracle? Are there any cards in fact left to play? At least, ones that aren’t marked with bullet holes?      

While we wait for the room to clear, step outside and listen to Zakaria’s partner in pestilence, David Gergen:

If the Republicans hold on — a surprise big victory — there’s some type of escalation in Iraq to get this finished. If the Democrats come in there’s a lot more pressure to disengage.

Truly dazzling logic at work here. The party that’s been in unchallenged control of every branch of government for the duration of the Iraq invasion and managed to screw up every aspect of the operation is the party that will magically bring about “some kind of escalation” to “get this finished.”

Punditosis. It puffs off the page every time Andrew Sullivan writes that he is “still optimistic that the Iraq mess can be turned around.” It fogs the screen whenever Bill Kristol or Tom Friedman suggest for the umpteenth time that “the next six months” will be the turning point for Iraq.

Can it be cured? Hard to say. The prognosis is not good. The biggest problem, aside from the fact that the patients don’t even realize they have a problem, is that the conceit behind these ridiculous statements is only the flip side of the Bush adnministration’s pigheaded hubris. Just as the Bushies hold to the line that democracy will bloom if we only keep dropping more bombs and shooting more Iraqis, the Pundtiosis Posse believes that America still has the power to effect positive change in Iraq. That moment has passed. Until the pundits come to terms with this fact, an internaitonal fleet of supertankers brimming over with Listerine will not be able to clear the air after these turkeys start gobbling.         

Our aim in Iraq is no longer how to get what we hope for — it’s how to avoid the worst that we fear. As the insurgents grow bolder with every demonstration of the greed and incompetence of the Bush administration and its lickspittles, the possibility of a disaster on the scale of the truck-bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut gets stronger by the day.

You want a plan for Iraq? Here it is — rush through one more legislative fig-leaf from the Iraqi “government” and then get the troops out the very next day. If we leave now, the inevitable tearing-apart of Iraq into three enclaves — Kurd-dominated North Bushistan, Shi’a ruled South Bushistan and terrorist incubator Central Bushistan — may happen after a long enough interval that the pundits and the GOP can pretend Bush’s swaggering stupidity and recklessness had nothing to do with it.

They’ll do it, too. The average political pundit has the attention span and memory capacity of a parakeet, and there is no Republican sin go great that David Broder can’t wash away the stain in the waters of Lethe. Hell, they’ll probably even talk it around so that the whole thing becomes the fault of the lefties and the progressives. That’s what they do, and that’s what they’ll say.

But for God’s sake, don’t stand too close to them when they say it.