James Lileks is so on fire today that the screen smolders when you read his Daily Bleat. He systematically takes apart a Minneapolis Star-Tribune editorial, comparing its declaration of Bush's failure in Iraq to its editorial supporting Clinton's "Desert Fox" campaign in 1998.

Here's the conclusion, but do read the whole thing.

Iraq will probably never be nuked because of the actions of its leaders. We can now expect the editorialists of the world to tell us we had it coming if we get nuked for making that future possible.

Let us go back to that editorial from 1998.

“There is one sound conclusion to be drawn from the confluence of events in Washington and Iraq: The conduct of foreign policy is a weighty responsibility that at times requires the undivided attention of a whole, unencumbered president. It is a sad commentary that some voices in Washington are complaint that momentous world events have interrupted their sideshow. . . . Events in Iraq make it clear that there is a world out there which requires the attention of the US Government. It’s time to shift focus away from the neighborhood farce and back to the world stage.”

This was a reference to the impeachment proceedings, of course. The editorialists were appalled that Congress was impeaching the president when the threat of Iraq loomed so large. Now the threat has been dispatched - and does this count for anything? No. The terrorist training campes are closed down, the torture barracks padlocked, the mass gravesare opened to the wailings of the families, the official hospitals of Baghdad no longer welcome cancerous terrorists, the Kurds no longer watch the skies for the helicopters and their bitter gusts, the citizens no longer wonder whether the government men will rip out the eyes of their infant children to produce the proper confession -

Irrelevant.

You know what really bothers some people?

That yellowcake story still looks shaky.

Further comment would be superfluous.