It's Exactly This Kind Of Intellectual Humility And Willingness To Take Responsibility That's Going To Win Us This War

This is from a transcript of Frederick Kagan, one of the intellectual architects of the "surge," being interviewed in a new Frontline documentary:

KAGAN: I think it's important to mention this -- we have really suffered from the fact that the opposition to the war has not been constructive and that there have been many, many opportunities for critics of the war to challenge the administration on the way that it was fighting the war that had been missed as critics through the end of the 2004 presidential campaign focused on whether we should have gone to war or not at all.

As it happens, I also have a transcript from a precocious 2 year-old Freddy Kagan speaking in 1971:

KAGAN: I think it's important to mention this -- we have really suffered from the fact that opposition to me smearing shit all over myself and the walls and everyone else has not been constructive. There have been many, many opportunities for critics to challenge me on the way I've been smearing shit on everything, but they have been missed as critics focused on whether I should have started smearing shit on everything at all.

AND: Let no one say the Bush administration hasn't followed through on his 2001 inaugural address:

America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected... Our public interest depends on private character... I will live and lead by these principles...