Regrets, they've had a few...

The rush of former neocons to cry, "oops," is really touching, isn't it?

In retrospect, neoconservatives (and I fully include myself) made three huge errors. The first was to overestimate the competence of government, especially in very tricky areas like WMD intelligence. The shock of 9/11 provoked an overestimation of the risks we faced. And our fear forced errors into a deeply fallible system. When doubts were raised, they were far too swiftly dismissed. The result was the WMD intelligence debacle, something that did far more damage to the war's legitimacy and fate than many have yet absorbed.

I for one, would be a lot more touched if Sullivan had simply overreacted to 9/11 by overestimating the risks we faced -- most people (myself included) did. Instead, he went further, calling us coastal dwellers fifth columnists.

The middle part of the country—the great red zone that voted for Bush—is clearly ready for war. The decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead—and may well mount what amounts to a fifth column.

A particularly galling and egregious claim in light of the fact that nearly all of the dead of September 11 had resided on the coasts.

UPDATE: Fixed an incorrect contraction.