Mark Steyn: Democrats quagmire: petty politics -

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | September 21, 2003 | Mark Steyn

[Ramius]

Uh... he wasn’t wrong. Afghanistan did go extremely well and was “over” for all practical purposes after the first year. Things were pretty well pacified there and it even lasted for a couple of years before the Taliban began to regroup and take advantage of our lower troop levels.

He mocked the idea of a “quagmire” because Peter Jennings started using that word in 2001 after we’d been in Afghanistan for a grand total of ten days.

[Huck]

No, actually, it wasn’t over. It isn’t over.

[Ramius]

No, of course it isn’t over. It’s come back with a vengeance.

[Huck]

Yup. Just something I've been thinking about lately. Like I said, I'm a big fan of Steyn's writing and humor. I like him at the EIB mic better than El Rushbo. I've been on the Steyn ping list for years, and consider him the finest commenter on the scene since HL Mencken. It's just that, like Mencken, he can sometimes be wrong. I went back looking to check my memory.

I think Steyn subscribes to neoconservative foreign policy thinking, and I think he chearleads for it the way Kudlow cheerleads the market all the time. Actually, I shouldn't say he's as bad as Kudlow. That's an insult. I can't take anything Kudlow says seriously.

Steyn's a great talent, but he was overly optimistic about Afghanistan, almost to the point of swagger. I wonder if he'd comment on the "long Afghan winters" now. Maybe I'll try giving him a call next time he fills in for Rush, which, knowing Rush these days, should be any day now.