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A visit to a strange planet, far far away...

Remember how a Qualcomm activist opposed the installation of a GSM phone network in Iraq, because it was French? Welcome to the world where this is rational: "This is a place of starchy introductions. Men approach one another with puffed-out chests and sturdy handshakes. Women are greeted with a single kiss on the cheek. Anything more, of course, would be French."

This is the world of the neo-conservative. It has, probably, nothing specifically to do with wireless, but it's a story which took place on a cruise ship, so it's "mobile" in a sense.

Either way, it's made my day. Its a National Review trip for committed neocons, and I have plenty of friends who qualify for this boat, and I love them. But to see them betrayed by the Editor? Yes.

"I wish it was true that, because we're a superpower, we can't lose. But it's not," says the Editor. No one argues with him. They just look away, in the same manner that people avoid glancing at a crazy person yelling at a bus stop.

 Yes, it's Iraq. The country where a Qualcomm activist Congressman opposed the installation of a GSM mobile phone network because it was "French" if you recall.

"This defeatist talk only contributes to the impression we are losing, when I think we're winning."

It's Podhoretz, a veteran right winger, Brooklyn-born, street-fighting kid who traveled through a long phase of left-liberalism to a pugilistic belief in America's power to redeem the world, one bomb at a time.

Today, he is a bristling gray ball of aggression, here to declare that the Iraq war has been "an amazing success." He waves his fist and declaims, "There were WMD, and they were shipped to Syria. ... This picture of a country in total chaos with no security is false. It has been a triumph. It couldn't have gone better." He wants more wars, and fast. He is "certain" Bush will bomb Iran, and "thank God" for that.

Why are you running away? Come back!