Fisking Hanson.

Sullivan, on Hanson's Putz-approved diatribe at NRO:

Is the media imperfect? You bet. Newsweek apologized for the tiny bit it got wrong in a wider story it got right; TNR's alleged fabulist has yet to be debunked in any transparent way - but if he is, I have no doubt, TNR will be held accountable (as if they haven't already); if photos are staged, the editors and photographers should be investigated and disciplined. All such criticism is a good thing. But when it is used to distract from much more profound mismanagement and indecency in the government, it is itself a form of propaganda.

After all, in the context of one of the biggest blunders in American warfare, these are minor matters, right? In the context of a war fought on false pretenses with too few troops and a surge that cannot create a national government and has not prevented a sectarian civil war, these minor points of accountability among third parties are trivial, right? A military historian like Hanson is going to be more concerned to see how such errors were made, how we can avoid them in future, what realistic options we have for triage in the country, and how best to remove our forces in a manner that best serves our national interest, right?

Nah. He's going to fixate on the press and the part of the CIA that seeks to account for its own mistakes. There's only one plausible expanation of this and it's simply a function of lashing out. Hanson's entire argument for this war has crumbled under him. His failure - intellectual as well as political - is profound. But sadly, one thing we have learned about many on the pro-war right and in the Bush administration is their refusal and inability to face the fact of their own failures and errors. It is always someone else's fault. If Hanson wants to excoriate writers and pundits for their mistakes in this war, fine. But he'd do well to start by examining his own record as well. Accountability really begins at home. We're waiting.

You'll be waiting a long time Andrew. You just won't get accountability from the likes of Hanson and Putz. They're incapable of it.