Derb – Sorry, the Goldbergs were out for a hike that ended up taking up most of the day. I’m not sure there’s much to respond to in your post.

But a few small points.

You write: ” I’d go easy on quoting Michael Gerson after Ramesh’s evisceration of the man in the last NRODT.”

I’ve criticized Gerson plenty of times myself, but I don’t see how the excerpt I quoted is diminished even remotely by the criticisms made by Ramesh or others. Sounds a bit like a debater’s trick.

You ask: “Do you think there are many Americans who, reading that story, will smack themselves on the forehead and exclaim: ‘Jeez, we shoulda stayed till all the SE Asian communists were thoroughly defeated! We were totally wrong to leave when we did!’? No, nor do I.”

Okay, this basically repeats your first point.

You say that it’s up to people like you to raise the issue of what the American people will stand for and that such points must be raised. “Someone has to make them, though—you can bet they are being made by a lot of people in Washington DC,” you say. I’m a bit flummoxed by this. I never said that such issues shouldn’t be raised nor do I believe that you are nearly so alone in raising them as you make it sound. Seems to me every discussion of the war I hear or see mentions the polls, the war’s unpopularity etc. You may be right in your reading of the American people, but you’ve got a lot of company in your views. My goodness you’re not even alone in saying, in effect, Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care about the potential for genocide or mass slaughter if we leave Iraq.