An author of the Lancet study acquits himself well despite being outnumbered on a panel about the mortality rate in Iraq. Most of the points against him amount to a simple refusal to believe his figures could be true. The 655,000 number is counterintuitive, but he answers almost all the objections persuasively point-by-point.

Jonah Goldberg cites a sharp e-mail approvingly, here. In essence, they're saying, "Our approach to fighting terrorism, we realize, isn't working, and we really have no idea why, nor how to fix our strategy. But at least we do know one thing: all the ideas being proposed by liberals are worthy only of ridicule, and should not be studied or considered." When Jonah does that extra thinking he proposes, he should consider whether, with such reflexive dismissal, he's actually taking the issue of terrorism as seriously as he thinks he is.