Who knows what stupidity lurks in the minds of Presidental luncheon-goers? Irwin Stelzer knows.

I was going to write about this mindblowing piece by Irwin Stelzer from the Weekly Standard, but I see that Glenn Greenwald and now lenin at Lenin's Tomb have said all that needs to be said. Stelzer relates an "intellectual" gathering he attended with George Bush along with such luminaries as Gertrude Himmelfarb, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of the WSJ's editorial page, and others. The guest of honor was Andrew Roberts, a conservative British historian. In addition to the usual pandering on the part of the Geheimraten and the Prez's simpleminded religious pronouncements, Stelzer shows us point-blank the delusional foreign policy positions that these people actually seem to believe. For example, in an answer to the question "Why is Bush so unpopular?", Roberts and Stelzer proffered the following:

The causes of rampant anti-Americanism do indeed include dislike of Bush. But there are others: the war in Iraq; anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian sentiment, laced with some covert anti-Semitism; and resentment of American power. Roberts urged the president not to concern himself with these anti-American feelings, since in a unipolar world the lone superpower cannot be loved. His advice: "Get your policies right and history will prove a kind muse."

And then Roberts presented five "lessons from history":

First: Do not set a deadline for withdrawal. That led to the slaughter of 700,000 to 1 million people in India, with the killing beginning one minute after the midnight deadline.

Second lesson: Will trumps wealth. The Romans, the tsars, and other rich world powers fell to poorer ones because they lacked the will to fight and survive.

Third lesson: Don't hesitate to intern our enemies for long, indefinite periods of time.

Lesson four: Cling to the alliance of the English-speaking peoples.

Fifth lesson: We are fighting an enemy that cannot be appeased.

This was all of course very pleasing to the President's royal ears. The whole piece is utterly insane and necessary reading for people interested in the inner workings of this regime. Read Stelzer's bit and the two blogger responses; they're high quality.