Cliches gone wild

Andrew Sullivan has turned his blog post of a couple of weeks ago -- the one where he didn't see the irony in a conservative admitting to have "overestimated the competence of government" -- into his latest column for Time magazine. But he has added new material: the hint of humility at the end of the original post is now replaced by

Regrets? Yes. But the certainty of some today that we have failed is as dubious as the callow triumphalism of yesterday. War is always, in the end, a matter of flexibility and will. And sometimes the darkest days are inevitable--even necessary--before the sky ultimately clears.

It reads better with Frank Sinatra (or Sid Vicious) playing in the background.

UPDATE: Sullivan later links to Niall Ferguson's Sunday Telegraph column, applying Gladstone's critique of Disraeli to George Bush. As we've argued before, 19th century British politics offers the most fertile ground for Bush comparisons (and not 20th, despite the Churchill fixation of the Bush cultists). Bush and Gladstone are only comparable in terms of their fixation with smashing wood, but Bush and Joe Chamberlain would have plenty to talk about.