"When Good News Feels Bad"

Hat tip to Donald Sensing for link to this New York mag opinion piece about the Left's cognitive dissonance between rooting for democratic Iraq's success v. hoping for its failure because it hurts Bush politically. Excerpt:

Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush’s risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in a de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. We can be angry with Bush for bringing us to this nasty ethical crossroads, but here we are nonetheless.

I don’t mean to suggest, in the right-wing, proto-fascist rhetorical fashion, that every good American is obliged to support all American wars. But at this moment in this war, that binary choice of who you want to win is inescapable and needs to be faced squarely . . . .