With news that 10 more American soldiers died in Iraq over the weekend, there’s not a great deal to be happy or proud about on this fourth anniversary of the “fall” of Baghdad. There is this, however: An Associated Press story on the report from an Iraqi government insider explains how, from the point of view of someone who was eager to collaborate with the United States, our leaders screwed up everything they touched. I’m not suggesting that we should be proud of that—but if there’s any comfort to be had in the story, it’s probably that many of us—both readers and writers at this blog—knew these things would happen, were happening, and/or had happened. We were right. What we said would happen happened. Our leaders, of both parties, but especially the neocon geniuses running this war, guys with advanced degrees and lots of experience thinking deep thoughts about how the world should be, never saw it coming, didn’t have a clue—and now that it’s happened, they can’t figure a way to fix it. But those of us who are arguing for things like a targeted withdrawal date and greater cooperation with other countries in the region to stabilize Iraq and keep the lid on the Middle East—well, we’re still right. Hooray for us.

Recommended Reading: It was “Blog Against Theocracy” weekend all around the blogosphere over Easter. (I started composing my own contribution but it kind of fell apart before I got it done, so you may never see it. I’m a shockingly untalented blogger, when you get right down to it.) There was some truly great stuff at Hullabaloo, however, as Tristero examined a book called With Liberty and Justice for All: Christian Politics Made Simple, which is essentially a ground-floor explanation of how a Christian theocracy would justify itself and what it would do. There were five posts in the series, each of which is worth the time it will take to read it. So read them now—before such thinking is declared to be against God’s law.