As the fallout from yesterday's blockbuster National Intelligence Estimate story continues, it's been interesting to watch the right-wing response, given how wedded prominent conservatives are to the military option in Iran, and how shamelessly they've repeated the fear mongering that led us to invade Iraq.

I've been keeping an eye on the National Review Online, which has provided much entertainment so far. The tone of the subheds on two of the lead stories pretty much sums up everything; a visibly hurt Victor Davis Hanson wonders, "Are they now to suggest that Republicans have been warmongering over a nonexistent threat for partisan purposes?" Michael Ledeen, displaying the thoughtful skepticism that has long been the hallmark of right-wing hawks, says, "If this NIE is true, the evidence would have to be awfully good. And evidence of that quality has been in famously short supply."

But when it comes to crazy, it's hard to top the creaky, paranoid, machinating brain of Norman Podhoretz. N-Pod (I know, his nickname doesn't flow quite as smoothly as his son's) thinks a plot is afoot:

I must confess to suspecting that the intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view (including as is evident from the 2005 NIE, within the intelligence community itself) that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons. I also suspect that, having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal.

Can an idea make so little sense that it somehow collapses in on itself like a black hole, sucking in any sane thought that stumbles across to its event horizon? It's a question worth asking.

And I know it's considered a cheap shot to take a blog commenter and hold him or her up as proof of a movement's craziness, but I can't resist. Here's the reaction of "David Thompson" to N-Pod:

It is my gut impression that the NIE is staffed by “elites” who graduated from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and other so-called universities of distinction. These people are very dangerous. A very high percentage of them, maybe even the majority, embrace a deceitful pacifism. They are utopians that believe on a subconscious level, if not even consciously, military action almost always causes more harm than good. This is especially true if those who threaten America possess dark skin. In that case, they are victims of our alleged imperialist policies. Everything will work out fine if we were only nicer to them. These folks would feel quite comfortable with the 1933 Oxford Union resolution declaring, “This House would under no circumstances fight for its King and country.”

It is my gut impression that we have some seriously unhinged people with big, powerful megaphones and far too much influence.