When you're in a hole, stop digging.

Putz hasn't learned this lesson. He updates his ode to assassination with:

Jeff Goldstein comments: "I don’t happen to agree with Reynolds on this. But that doesn’t mean I find the suggestion irrational or repugnant -- just, from a contemporary political standpoint, unworkable." But read the whole thing, as he has some choice -- and accurate -- things to say about Glenn Greenwald's analysis and Greenwald's -- typical -- misrepresentation of my positions.

Right off the bat, you know you're in trouble when you look to Jeff Goldstein to answer your critics. What, Pamela at Atlas Shrugged wasn't available? And how has Greenwald misrepresented anything? Apparently not significantly enough for Putz to answer Greenwald directly.

Goldstein adds:

"The problem is that any solution we propose will be the wrong solution to the progressives."

No, Jeff. That's actually not the problem. The problem is calling for the "quiet" assassination of scientists and religious leaders of a county we're not at war with, and that our military denies is responsible for attacks in Iraq (where we should not be to begin with) is not a "solution." It's batshit crazy and illegal. Also, it wasn't just "progressives" who ridiculed Putz's "solution." Von at Obsidian Wings thought Putz's "solution" was laughable.

We're in the "I want a pony" realm of foreign policy, wherein the US can do anything and it's free too. Given that the last round of I-want-a-pony (a round that I supported, incidentally) resulted in a not-so-good outcome in Iraq, I'm hesitant to buck history again and support Reynolds' pony-wanting on Iran.

This entire episode explains why Putz abruptly discontinued his extremely short-lived blog symposium on Iraq. He tried to do something substantive and got hammered so soundly by the unanimous ridicule, including from conservatives, that he just slinked away quietly and went back to his one-line "hehs" and "indeeds."

He'd be much better off staying there.