Matt demonstrates that... he's not insane

Matthew Yglesias must have heard of that old definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. It's unfortunate that he needs to point out that predicting that something will happen doesn't mean that that is what you want to happen. But maybe that's a confusing concept for members of the non-evidence based community who regularly try to effect change by... hoping really hard -- the old Disney movie approach.

Seriously, people, think before you open your mouths and crack open your laptops.

Does anyone -- anyone -- on the right genuinely believe that those of us who favor withdrawal from Iraq do so because we don't think it would be a good idea to turn the country into a shining success? Of course we don't think that. We favor withdrawal because we don't believe that indefinite continuation of an open-ended military presence in Iraq is likely to generate success. The country has been doing this for three and a half years now and things aren't improving; they're getting worse. Nobody disputes the desirability of success; we dispute the notion that continuing to do the same things that aren't working now, and weren't working one year ago, and weren't working two years ago, are going to magically start working if we give it another year.