I've said it before, I'll say it again, David Brooks is truly a moron.

In his column yesterday, he laments, "If the Democrats don’t like the U.S. policy on Iraq over the next six months, they have themselves partly to blame. There were millions of disaffected Republicans and independents ready to coalesce around some alternative way forward, but the Democrats never came up with anything remotely serious."

What a bucket of horse dung. Apart from some kind of measured withdrawal, which many if not most Dems have proposed and supported, what "alternative way" is there? What miracle plan exists that the Dems somehow overlooked or just didn't think of? Why doesn't Brooks suggest a few?

This Republican president and his lackeys -- which includes the GOP-controlled Congress that did nothing but serve as a rubber-stamping, fawning echo chamber for Bush's every whim -- put this country into one of the worst foreign policy debacles in memory, screwing it up at every turn, firing those who correctly spoke out with prescient warnings and promoting those who said what the powers-that-be wanted to hear. To paraphrase Colin Powell, they broke it and now they (we) own it.

But Brooks has the gall to criticize the Dems for not completing the Hail Mary pass into the endzone to win the game, to not suddenly grab the wheel and hopelessly steer the Titanic clear from harms way. How ludicrous.

And why the Dems? Why doesn't Brooks criticize Republicans for not coming up with an "alternative way"? What, are they all mindless drones, joined at the hip, forced to go along with whatever GW decides? Needless to say, it's their party that was in complete control and presided over our government when this disaster unfolded, shouldn't they at least feel the need to offer alternatives? At least a few Republicans have not agreed with Bush, so where's the miracle plan from them?

But because the Dems have not pulled a magical solution out of their bag of tricks, one that will rectify the many wrongs with the Iraq situation, then according to Brooks they have no right to criticize U.S. policy on Iraq. And yet Brooks apparently has the right to criticize them.

Yup, he's a blithering dolt who unfortunately makes one long for the days of Safire's column (gads).