mushroom cloud
Years ago, I imagine there were many directions the Washington Post may have wanted to go with their editorial page. But it’s still hard to believe they decided — "You know, I sure wish we could out do James Taranto". Well, congratulations WaPo, some newspapers would be satisfied with just having a Sousa-march named after them; some would say let’s keep the public goodwill of the Watergate Cover-up investigation years going. But not you, you decided, let’s enable the oppressed Republican Party and its glorious wars as much as possible.

There’s no editor more capable of finding a way to shake off the errors of the past and concentrate on ramping up the errors of the future than Fred Hiatt.

Why just look at him go:

September 25, 2007:

Even if Tehran provides satisfactory answers, its uranium enrichment — and thus its progress toward a bomb — will continue. That doesn’t trouble Mr. ElBaradei, who hasn’t hidden his view that the world should stop trying to prevent Iran from enriching uranium and should concentrate instead on blocking U.S. military action. Do Russia and China share this judgment? If so, they are more likely to precipitate a U.S. or Israeli military strike than to prevent one.

One can literally see Hiatt salivate at writing the editorial stating Dick Cheney had no choice but to bomb those Iranians so hard that that even Kathryn Lopez bounced. "See what you made him do?"

One may think that the latest NIE stating Iran stopped working on a nuclear bomb in 2003 would temper Fred from enriching his own codpiece, but why would logic and rationality take hold now?

Iran’s "decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs," says the public summary released Monday. That sounds like an endorsement of the diplomatic strategy pursued by the Bush administration since 2005, which has been aimed at forcing Iran to choose between the nuclear program and normal economic and security relations with the outside world. It strengthens the view, which we have previously endorsed, that this administration should not have to resort to military action to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities.

Passive-Aggressive much Fred?