What?!?!?!?

Have you ever listened to someone try to tell you something that is clearly beyond their level of ability to comprehend? You stand there looking at them quizzically wondering if they truly understand the monumental ignorance they possess.

Here's a perfect example. Jonathan Chait of The New Republic is quoted as saying, “The debate about Iraq has moved past the question of whether it was a mistake (everybody knows it was) to the more depressing question of whether it is possible to avert total disaster... It’s all terribly grim. So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power.”

What? This is what passes as supposed intellectual exercise these days. Imagine Roosevelt or Churchill saying during the dark days of World War II, “This clearly is more difficult than we thought. Let's let Hitler keep Germany and Poland as long as he agrees to leave the rest of us alone.”

Fortunately, that kind of lunacy would have been laughed at in those days as it should be today. Setting aside the debate of a right or wrong approach in Iraq or even the wisdom of invading the country in the first place, the sheer idiocy of suggesting that the best option is to return a proven despot to power is befuddling.

It tells me that those who make such asinine statements think from the place of what benefits themselves, their party or ideology the most. They certainly are not considering what is the right thing to do. In this case, right meaning morally and logically right.

It certainly would not be right to put a man who has murdered at least tens of thousands back in charge of the very people who have just convicted him of those crimes. To return to the days of rape squads and mass graves is your answer?

The scope of the stupidity in thinking like this frankly scares me. I can deal with people disagreeing with me, that's actually a good thing. But when I think there are actually people who can not reason through something so simple without seeing the fallacy of such an option, I wonder what would happen if someone like this were to actually have the power to make this kind of decision. Terrifying. Make sure you know who you're voting for.