What is Richard Cohen talking about?

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen veers into a surreal landscape with today's back-bending effort at justifying the disastrous Iraq war.

He begins fairly well with an acknowledgement that the Middle East is a mess, despite President Bush's assurance that the invasion of Iraq would be the birth of a new golden age in that part of the world.

Then, he loses his grip on reality.

In short, and not taking into account the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, the war in Iraq has hardly made this area more stable. It's true, of course, that nothing catastrophic has yet occurred in the region, but the casual assurance that nothing will happen must now be held to a new post-Iraq standard: Just about everything Washington said was happening (weapons of mass destruction) and would happen (an easy occupation) has turned out to be utterly false.

One could almost forgive President Bush for waging war under false or mistaken pretenses had a better, more democratic Middle East come out of it.

No, Mr. Cohen, one could not. Waging war under false (not mistaken) pretenses is an unforgivable presidential sin. People have died and are dying who otherwise might have lived. George W. Bush led this nation into a war it did not need to fight. His soul is poisoned with the essence of his corruption. This is why the man is deteriorating before our eyes. He is decaying from the inside out. He is dying under the weight of his crimes.

A good result does not redeem a bad act. Evil taints everything that comes from it, even that which might seem desirable. If I murder a man for money to feed my starving family, the food they eat is stained with that man's blood. My family might praise me, but I remain a murderer.

George W. Bush is a tragically unserious man. He embarked on this war as though it were a game, as though the men, women and children whose lives were at risk were merely pieces on a board. He sold his war to the American people as though it were a new brand of lunch meat. But, even the most expert marketing campaign cannot disguise the smell of decay. This is why public opinion of this war is declining steadily.

This also is why no result can redeem Bush's war. It was conceived with, and remains borne upon, lies. If you woke up tomorrow, Mr. Cohen, to find that Iraq had blossomed overnight into a flawless Jeffersonian democracy, and that the same was now spreading into every one of its neighbors, the payoff would still be the wages of sin.