Cynicism and Delusion

That's what the Dems are peddling, according to Mark Steyn:

There's a big lesson for the Democrats there that goes way beyond the merits of abortion or gay marriage. On Sept. 11, the world came unspun: There's no shame in acknowledging, as Condi Rice did last week, that previous policy -- Republican and Democrat -- toward the Middle East is wrong. But there's something silly and immature about a party that, from Kerry to Boxer to Byrd, can't get beyond spin, grandstanding and debater's points: Joyce Smith sees through it, even if David von Drehle thinks it's ingenious. If the president's speech yoked idealism and realism, that doesn't leave much for dissenting Dems except their own peculiar combination of cynicism and delusion.

Read how he got to this conclusion--there's noone like Steyn who can be as humorous and deadly serious at the same time. Let me just add that the Dems come to this "combination of cynicism and delusion" by way of denial. They have yet to accept the fact of 9/11, preferring to remain in the Clinton era of "perfection", where they imagined they were loved and respected by the world and that everything was good. In a way, they are like the little hobbits of Tolkien, living innocently in their idyllic, protected land--unaware of the wider world and the evil that lurks just outside the borders of their consciousness. Unfortunately for them, the evil will penetrate their landscape whether they appreciate its reality or not.

Denial and delusion are, after all, primitive psychological defenses and neither work well for very long; nor bode well for psychological health.