Five Years of Magical Thinking

The AP reports in your Chicago Sun-Times that Henry Hyde accidentally identified the Bush foreign policy as a childish fantasy.

Illinois Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, who is influential on foreign affairs matters, questioned the wisdom and effectiveness Thursday of American efforts to spread democracy, a cornerstone of Bush administration policy.

With Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice poised to testify to the panel that Hyde chairs, the House International Relations Committee, he questioned what he called the ''Golden Theory'' -- that the United States can produce peace and stability around the world by financing and encouraging democracy.

''The magic formula of democracy alone'' will not work, said Hyde (R-Ill.), who represents a west suburban district. It must be paired with ''unbounded power'' and ''an open-ended commitment of time and resources, which we cannot and will not do,'' he said. ***

''But without that long-term dominant American position, the odds of success are long indeed,'' Hyde said.

He did not mention President Bush or Rice, and she did not respond to his remarks.

And in case you have forgotten, we have already made an "open-ended committment" of 400 BILLION DOLLARS to Bush ''Golden Theory'' experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan -- with an Shiite religious bloc electoral victory and a resurgent Taliban to show for it.

Note: I held off until the afternoon to post this to allow our Republican friends to have the first crack at addressing this apparent split between their 6th Dist. Saint and the Bush Administration's Mission from God. But like the vice president shooting an old man in the face, it seems that this is something that they would rather ignore and pretend never happened.