Iraq III: Quote du Jour on the War

Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post:

"Go ahead, people, you have your orders from Napoleon Bonaparte, I mean Donald Rumsfeld. 'Back off' and 'relax.' Book a cruise to Chillsville. Don't worry your pretty little heads about the debacle in Iraq, because 'it's complicated, it's difficult.' Are mere mortals going to be able to get their minds around a problem that even Albert Einstein, I mean Donald Rumsfeld, finds complicated? Let's be realistic here.

"We should all thank our lucky stars that 'honorable people' are willing to do all this super-advanced thinking for us. Aristotle, I mean Donald Rumsfeld, was kind enough to phrase it that way rather than spell out what he really meant, which was 'people who are smarter than you.'

"I realize that a few news cycles have come and gone since the secretary of defense held that stunning news conference at the Pentagon last week, but it was such a telling moment -- such a revealing glimpse behind the curtain -- that it deserves to remain fresh in our minds, even amid the distracting cacophony of eleventh-hour electioneering. There, in just two words, you have the Bush administration's approach to the war in Iraq. Indeed, you have the Republicans' theory of government:

"Back off."

More here.