"To my mind it's a kind of right-wing utopianism"

"There are people who ask George Bush to do everything at once," he declares, "instead of picking his shots and moving at a politically viable pace. It's nice as an intellectual exercise, but what is the point of demanding things that no democratic political leader, not even George Bush, could conceivably do at this time?

Cecil Turner over at JOM highlighted this interview with Norman Podhoretz. The interview is well worth reading for its assessment of fantasy constructs erected by some on the right which are every bit as delusional as some of the more odd ideas espoused by the left.

He makes a particularly telling point regarding the left's attempt at defeatism through redefinition. Calling stress interrogations torture is almost as asinine as revealing NSA surveilance techniques. Both require an imagination so deeply rooted in fantasy as to leave very little room for real world rebuttal. It's not much different than an imagination that can conjure a roundup and deportation of nine million illegals occuring because of a stroke of a pen. Truly magical thinking.

The art of the possible is not made easier by fools clinging to dreams of building castles in the air.