I've always wondered why people take George Will seriously. Now I wonder it doubly:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Tonight's debate will be a duel between two delusional optimists. It pits a man who regards recent events in Iraq as "steady progress" against a man who, while accusing the president of unrealism, says that when he becomes president, "the world" -- a geographical expression, not a political entity -- will help heal Iraq.

I can almost imagine Mr. Will hurriedly finishing his piece for the Washington Post typed up so he still has time to make popcorn before sitting down to wait for the debate... until tomorrow night at 9 p.m. Eastern. Did he get his TV Guide from Dan Rather?

I shouldn't go so hard on him, maybe. He does have some awfully mean things to say about that other George W. To wit:

Tonight's debate will be a duel between two delusional optimists. It pits a man who regards recent events in Iraq as "steady progress" against a man who, while accusing the president of unrealism, says that when he becomes president, "the world" -- a geographical expression, not a political entity -- will help heal Iraq...

If ever an administration, in a reelection season properly dominated by a single issue of the administration's choosing, has earned an electoral rebuke, it is this one...

But Bush also seems to believe -- at least the slapdash nonplanning for the Iraq project suggests this belief -- that a natural right implies a natural, meaning a spontaneous and omnipresent capacity...

I am tempted to move on and pick apart the most boneheaded remarks from the parts of Will's screed that parrot the Kerry-as-flip-flopper-without-a-plan meme. But, instead, I will just mention that the Iraqi people do have the capacity for an open society. Capacity isn't the correct word. They lack the proper environment for it. And, it is one of those great cosmic coincidences that it is difficult in the extreme for self-rule to be imposed on a people by a foreign force. Perhaps the world could have provided an environment that would make an open democracy in Iraq possible, and perhaps the people, by their own resolve, would have chosen to grasp for it. But that possibility will remain unexplored for at least a little longer.

And now, on a completely unrelated note, here is a political cartoon to go with the theme of some of our recent posts (click to enlarge):