Repentance Before Redemption

Regarding conservative John Cole's very public remorse I linked to below, Tapped's Charles P. Pierce wasn't impressed:

Hey, John. Michael Dukakis was a decent man. Al Gore was a decent man, and so was John Kerry. Max Cleland and Tom Daschle were decent men. Newt Gingrich, a supremely indecent man, made his career attacking decent men. Going back further, because I'm old enough to remember that vicious closet-case Terry Dolan and his NCPAC campaigns, Frank Church and George McGovern were decent men. It's not enough to decide that the tactics that empowered your political philosophy are suddenly odious because they've empowered a feckless incompetent. Repentance before redemption, boys. Rise from the fainting couches and pick up the flagellum. As the nuns used to say, I don't think you've sufficiently examined your consciences.

Cole's remorse and revulsion seem genuine, but Pierce has a point. I mean, if the Bush Administration didn't turn everything they touch into crap and we were winning in Iraq regardless of the false reasons given for us being there, would we still see this onslaught of mea culpas from the so-called traditional conservatives?

If their regrets are due more to their current leadership's incompetence and failure of execution rather than its excesses and egregious abuse of power, then their regrets really don't count for much.



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