PONU-passing

About nine months ago, I expanded upon an important concept offered by the founder of the Institute by coining the phrase "the point of non-unshitability" to refer to the point at which it becomes impossible to fix a mistake. (The original usage: "People want someone to unshit the bed. You can't unshit the bed. All you can do is make the bed-shitter sleep on the floor. "

At that time it was painfully obvious to the reality-based that Iraq had long since passed that point. But the conservatives were still madly churning away in their attempts to fling the growing pile of poo elsewhere.

The time since has certainly not reduced the feces content of the bed. (Nor, alas, did it result in uptake of my "Point Of Non-Unshitability" terminology. I now suspect it needed a good, sanitized acronym.) But if you are the kind of person who looks for ponies, there is a small one here -- the ranks of the unshitability-deniers have shrunk considerably.

Charles Krauthammer. George Will, Oliver North and David Brooks. The Mustache of Freedom. A number of Republican Senators. Perhaps even Rummy. These Serious Men would likely differ as to the exact moment when we reached the Point of Non-Unshitability. But the important thing is that they seem to have finally come around to acknowledging the fact that, like orifice from which the problem excretes, the problem is behind rather than in front of us. (Admitting that they were wrong and complicit in the disaster is, shall we say, somewhere in the future. But, as they say in the 12-step community, one day at a time.)

So who's left? Bush-Cheney. Victor Davis Hanson. Lieberman. McCain. And that is pretty much it. The dead-enders won't fit in a phone booth, but might squeeze into your average ADA-compliant toilet.

To finish the job, as mentioned above, we need to sanitize the name. Thus I present: PONU.

I think the increasing acknowledgment of the passing of the PONU is a critically important phenomenon, and deserves greater play. So please help me push my PONU-passing meme, and point me to additional former Kool Aid drinkers who now seem to have acknowledged the passing of the PONU.

(Special Bonus Factoid: search "mustache of freedom" in Google, and the first result is moi, but the seventh is Friedman himself.)

(Special double bonus: Friedman snark recycling.)

Update: Brooks lives inside the Times' Green Zone, so I have not read his latest. But it appears that his PONU acceptance remains incomplete at best. At worst, he remains the same fool he has always been.