Here's a bit of good weekend reading:

Time for the neocons to admit that the Iraq war was wrong from the start
Matthew Parris, Times Online: October 21, 2006

HARK -- CAN YOU hear it? Borne on the wind, can you hear the sounds of construction -- of hammers hammering and woodsaws sawing? And do you detect a note of panic? I do. The good ship Neocon is going down.
...
They are building a lifeboat for their reputations. The task is urgent. It is no small thing to find oneself on the wrong side of an argument when the debate is about the biggest disaster in British foreign policy since Suez; no small thing to have handed Iran a final, undreamt-of victory in an Iran-Iraq war that we thought had ended in the 1980s; no small thing to have lost Britain her credit in half the world; no small thing -- in the name of Atlanticism -- to have shackled our own good name to a doomed US presidency and crazed foreign-policy adventure that the next political generation in America will remember only with an embarrassed shudder.
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Our British neocons have invested heavily in this ill-fated craft, and the wreck is total. How shall they be saved? Never fear. They've been working on the elements of a rescue plan. By Christmas all will be singing from the same sheet. All together, now, warrior-columnists and soon-to-be-former Cabinet ministers: one, two three . . .

"The principle was good but the Americans screwed up the execution."

Damn Their Eyes:

President George Bush has now become a pariah within his own party. Shunned by Congressional candidates on his tours of the states, Bush is the toxic epicentre of a Republican midterm meltdown.
...
With their belligerent rhetoric now torn and tattered, the Bush-Cheney White House faces a political holocaust next Tuesday. American voters are incendiary with anger at the Bush-Cheney White House. By a majority of two to one, American voters are opposed to the war in Iraq. A volcanic eruption of political dynamite will explode next Tuesday triggering an earthquake in American history. The seismic proportions will be gigantic, and the tectonic shifts will relegate neoconservativism - as it has been known and practiced by Bush and Cheney - to a grotesque exhibit in the museum of political insanity.
...
America's global reputation as a democratic society lies in ruins. Worse. The American press and media are now ranked 53rd on the Worldwide Press Freedom Index. This decline in status is nothing less than a disgrace, for the United States of America is tied in a dead heat with three other countries: Botswana, Croatia and Tonga - for even that dubious distinction.

You're gonna yell and scream,
"Don't anybody care?"
You're gonna hear out a voice say,
"Shoulda listened when you heard the word down there."
Hey, hey!

I'd Sure Hate To Be You On That Dreadful Day

From Steve Clemons at TWN:

In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Joshua Muravchik -- a neoconservative fellow traveler -- has published a remarkable article, "Operation Comeback" that combines an offering of a mea culpa for much of the neocon-generated foreign policy mess America is in and then stunning bravado with encouragement that the President initiate a third war against a Muslim nation.

Muravchik's article is written as a memo to his "fellow neoconservatives."

There are a lot of disturbing zingers in the piece, but here is the part that every voter should be made aware of:

• Prepare to Bomb Iran.

Make no mistake, President Bush will need to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities before leaving office.
...
The global thunder against Bush when he pulls the trigger will be deafening, and it will have many echoes at home. It will be an injection of steroids for organizations such as MoveOn.org. We need to pave the way intellectually now and be prepared to defend the action when it comes.

Neoconservatives have the president's ear, but they also have lots of baggage. To stay relevant, they must admit mistakes, embrace public diplomacy, and start making the case for bombing Iran.

TO: My Fellow Neoconservatives
FROM: Joshua Muravchik
RE: How to Save the Neocons