Sympathy for the Devil (please)

Ross Douthat writes "The Vice-President in his Labyrinth." The money line:

From the vantage point of punditry, it’s easy to scoff at the one percent doctrine, and easy, as well, to argue that the “ticking bomb” scenario that seems to undergird Cheney’s approach to detention and interrogation never really happens, or is sufficiently rare to be a poor guide for policy. I tend to agree with both these contentions, but I also don’t come in to the office every day to find an intelligence briefing on my desk that’s probably thirty percent rumor, forty percent guesswork, and twenty percent lies, but that could turn out to be the briefing that accurately predicts the next 9/11 or something far worse.

Well said!