Josh Marshall looks at causality in bizarro world as he examines a line you hear a lot from Bush supporters:
Again and again I read -- or hear directly from administration supporters -- this excuse that any questioning of the administration's record in foreign affairs, or Iraq, or even on other matters is just a deplorable focusing on the past, a distraction, when the nation faces grave challenges which we need to focus on solving.This is more than just simple buck-passing. It is a sort of through-the-looking-glass version of how problem-solving and accountability are supposed to work. It also has the perverse benefit of allowing the scope of the administration's failures to become reasons for not discussing those failures -- a sort of self-reinforcing anti-accountability causality loop...
But of course the scions of the right, including some of their most visible and respected members, have been proferring Alice logic for quite a while now. It's a completely mainstream tactic, and one that we need to jump on wherever we see it.