David and George in Wonderland

Today is one of those days when you read the first sentence of David Brooks's column---

If the Democrats don’t like the U.S. policy on Iraq over the next six months, they have themselves partly to blame.

---and realize that yes, there is at least one other person as delusional as the president when it comes to Iraq policy.

Brooks goes on to explain his rationale:

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.

Consider the underlying logic of this position. At base it's very simple: if the Democrats had come up with a "remotely serious" alternative to the President's plan to stay-the-course, send-more-troops to Iraq (never mind the commanders on the ground after all!) or however you want to describe it, then somehow--somehow--George W. Bush magically would have seen the light, been convinced by Democratic seriousness, and adopted their plan.

Yeah, right.

Just consider this excerpt from the NYT's front page article on Bush's speech last night:

[The president] put it far more bluntly when leaders of Congress visited the White House earlier on Wednesday. “I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out,” the president told the Congressional leaders, according to two officials who were in the room. Pressed on why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous efforts had failed, Mr. Bush shot back: “Because it has to.”

There you go. We're pursuing a policy. Why will it work? Because it has to.

Once again: We are pursuing because it has to work.

The Democrats have done lots wrong on Iraq and plenty of other things. But come on. This is---even partly---the Democrats' fault?