I wrote yesterday that the most basic appeal of wingnutism is that you never have to admit failure. You also don’t have to admit to success, when credit might go to someone you don’t like. For example, Michael Tomasky writes,

David Brooks writes an odd sentence today (the second one):

…today, as an impeccably crafted multilateral force intervenes in Libya, certain old feelings are coming back to the surface. These feelings have been buried since the 1990s, when multilateral efforts failed in Kosovo, Rwanda and Iraq.

Hmmm. What failed in Iraq in 1991? The mission was to get Saddam out of Kuwait, and the mission was accomplished. In Kosovo, the mission to stop violence and restore autonomy to Kosovo. Those things (pretty much) happened. Rwanda was a failure all right, but wasn’t that because the West’s slowness and non-intervention contributed to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people?

Tomasky goes on to say that there is plenty to criticize about Kosovo and the Gulf War, as well as Rwanda, but how can you say the military intervention in Kosovo and the Gulf War failed?

And the answer is, of course, that this is wired into the wingnut internal narrative about war — it’s all about the glory and the swagger. Objectives? We don’t need no steenking objectives …

And we all also know that if it were a Republican president doing exactly what President Obama is doing, whatever that is, every right-wing bobblehead on the planet would be praising him for his resolve and leadership, and anyone with any quibbles about his not notifying Congress is aiding the enemy.

Hypocrisy snark aside, as Tomasky says, the plan is supposed to be that after this initial bombing phase, the U.S. will hand off the ball to France and step aside, which is fine by me.