After criticizing George W. Bush's prosecution of the war in Iraq and then the occupation, Andrew Sullivan is backtracking, and pointing out that maybe it isn't quite the disaster he predicted. The old agitprop is getting impossible to sustain, and the notion that neocons are out to seize the oil and errect a new imperium  gets less plausible by the day.

Sullivan hasn't completely abandoned ship. For example:

The Bush administration compounded these errors with dumb—as—a—post decisions, like co—opting Abu Ghraib to torture and kill innocents....

Come on, Andrew, surely you don't believe that the Abu Ghraib abuses (known as "torture" to those who haven't a clue what happened in Abu Ghraib under Saddam) were an intentional policy?

Unless Sy Hersh can get some more pictures of panties on someone's head, or make up some new stories, Sullivan may actually rejoin the ranks of the lucid.

Hat tip: Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson   4 17 05

Richard Baher adds:

When a guy is ever so slightly admitting that the  object of  his contempt for two years — Bush — may have ben right, he has to do it in a way that protects his earlier aggression against him. so this is about the best you can expect from him. At least he is not railing about gay marriage for a change.