I'm not gonna scare you. I'm off duty.

This Washington Post piece "Bush faces backlash on the right" seems to be equal parts conservative CYA and conservative historical revisionism. Both are equally delusional.

The CYA appears in the form of various conservative players complaining about foreign policy decisions by the administration, especially those that don't involve choosing a military option as the only way to achieve foreign policy goals-

Conservative intellectuals and commentators who once lauded Bush for what they saw as a willingness to aggressively confront threats and advance U.S. interests said in interviews that they perceive timidity and confusion about long-standing problems including Iran and North Korea, as well as urgent new ones such as the latest crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.

Mog not use club enough!

At it's core this is what Digby likes to refer as "conservativism can't fail it can only be failed." If some conservative economic or foreign policy initiative collapses under real-world application it can never, ever be because the premise was wrong to begin with. It follows that such a failure falls on the shoulders of those that tried to apply the conservative principle. In this case that person would be George W Bush who apparently wasn't bellicose enough or didn't oversimplify complex geopolitics to a level in which the conservative principle of "carry a big stick and speak damn loudly" would thrive.

It's all nonsense, of course which is why they also have to try and change recent history -

Conservatives complain that the United States is hunkered down in Iraq without enough troops or a strategy to crush the insurgency. They see autocrats in Egypt and Russia cracking down on dissenters with scant comment from Washington, North Korea firing missiles without consequence, and Iran playing for time to develop nuclear weapons while the Bush administration engages in fruitless diplomacy with European allies. They believe that a perception that the administration is weak and without options is emboldening Syria and Iran and the Hezbollah radicals they help sponsor in Lebanon.

Conservatives complain that the United States is hunkered down in Iraq without enough troops? WTF? Conservatives?

Sorry- conservatives have spent the last four years telling those of us that complained about troop levels and that our forces were overextended in Iraq to STFU. Conservatives have been droning on endlessly about how none of the good news out of the country is getting reported and that things are really going swimmingly. Conservatives - at every step of this stupid war - have obstinately refused to look at the big picture and consider the larger implications to U.S. foreign policy and military capability. Now they try and try and tell us that really wasn't them standing behind Bush sticking their tongue out at us?

Even after the Clinton impeachment, the election of 2000 and the disastrous Bush presidency I still remain in awe of the ability of rank-and-file conservatives to remain oblivious to the real world and continue to insist that their fantasy narrative is really how things work. Douglas Adams wrote that the trick to flying was "to aim for the ground and miss." Conservatives seem to have taken this to heart. Except- instead of the ground they aim for the truth.

And miss.