Proving that it's not just The New York Times that can write whiny yet nonetheless strangely unctuous and oily editorials, here's The Wall Street Journal weighing in on the recent very bad decision to send Turks as peacekeepers into Iraq.

We're disappointed that Turkey's decision has been met with threats from some Kurds and cries of "sell-out" from some of their American supporters. Turkey was an indispensable protector of the Northern Iraqi Kurdish safe haven for more than a decade, providing it with a vital trade link to the outside world and with the air bases to support Operation Northern Watch.

We're "disappointed"?!?! As in, "I'm not angry, but I'm really disappointed in you, Johnny." How weak and pathetic and passive agressive! This is supposed to be a rabid conservative editorial page?

So much for tone. How about the tenacious grasp on non-essential facts? Yes, after some arm-twisting in 1991 the Turks did allow relief to go the Kurds. After, it should be noted, the Turkish troops looted humanitarian supplies of food and medicine (which information I got from a Green Beret who was there). And they were indeed willing to contain Saddam. And? That's where it ended. They were distinctly unwilling to actually do anything about Saddam.

There's no reason to be mad at the Turks forever, or keep the ball and fire truck away from them. But why let them do what they manifestly tried to prevent? Bizarre.

But the WSJ has some more gobbling and clucking to do:

Some of the ideas being mooted to soothe Kurdish sensibilities--such as moving Turkish troops by air or sea--would justifiably be considered an affront by the Turks, who are putting themselves very much in harm's way. If Washington is going to turn the Turkish parliamentary vote into an actual deployment, it is going to have to talk bluntly with Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani.

Give. Us. A. Break. Please. Now the editorialists are concerned about Turkish sensibilities. I have no time to consult the editorials back when the Turks refused to allow the Fourth Infantry Division through Turkey to start a second front in Iraq. But do you think that they were then a little, ahhhh, less solicitous of Turkish sensibilities? But now they are suggesting that we run over Kurdish sensibilities with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, as if it is somehow our right, and in our interest...when it is in neither.

If this disgusting little piece of editorializing was in The New York Times then the WSJ resident blowhard James Taranto would be slamming it faster than you can say "Howell Raines". And quite rightly, too.