Quote of the day: Paul Krugman suggests that policies like Bush's Iraq debacle are to be expected when The Decider listens exclusively to suck-ups

"Iraq has become a quagmire of the vanities--a place where America is spending blood and treasure to protect the egos of men who won't admit that they were wrong."--Paul Krugman, in his NYT column today, "Quagmire of the Vanities"*

The only real question about our soon-to-be-announced "surge" in Iraq ("better described as a Vietnam-style escalation"), says Krugman, is whether its proponents are cynical or delusional. He cites advocates of both views, then notes that--

we don't have to settle the question. Either way, what's clear is the enormous price our nation is paying for President Bush's character flaws.

I began writing about the Bush administration's infallibility complex, the president's Captain Queeg-like inability to own up to mistakes, almost a year before the invasion of Iraq. When you put a man like that in a position of power--the kind of position where he can punish people who tell him what he doesn't want to hear, and base policy decisions on the advice of people who play to his vanity--it's a recipe for disaster.

Krugman has some fun with the pathetic caliber of "advice" our Chimpy has sought on the subject ("a remarkable coalition of the unwilling--men who have been wrong about Iraq every step of the way, but aren't willing to admit it"), notably the breath-takingly lame duo of William Kristol of The Weekly Standard [left] and Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute [below].

Mr. Kristol's track record should have been reason enough to ignore his advice. For example, early in the war, Mr. Kristol dismissed as "pop sociology" warnings that there would be conflict between Sunnis and Shiites and that the Shiites might try to create an Islamic fundamentalist state. . . .

But Mr. Kristol and Mr. Kagan appealed to Mr. Bush's ego, suggesting that he might yet be able to rescue his signature war. And am I the only person to notice that after all the Oedipal innuendo surrounding the Iraq Study Group--Daddy's men coming in to fix Junior's mess, etc.--Mr. Bush turned for advice to two other sons of famous and more successful fathers?

Krugman has some more fun with examples of the few "elder statesmen" our Chimpy apparently does listen to--Henry Kissinger and John McCain--before moving in for the kill:

Mr. Bush is expected to announce his plan for escalation in the next few days. According to the BBC, the theme of his speech will be "sacrifice." But sacrifice for what? Not for the national interest, which would be best served by withdrawing before the strain of the war breaks our ground forces. No, Iraq has become a quagmire of the vanities--a place where America is spending blood and treasure to protect the egos of men who won't admit that they were wrong.

*The full text of the Krugman column is appended in a comment.