El Salvador and Iraq Again

Though I missed the first 1/2 of the Edwards-Cheney debate, I understand that Cheney used the exact argument David Brooks used in his NYTimes editorial that I attacked in a recent post which said that we should use El Salvador in the 80s as a model for Iraq. I'm not going to go over why this is an incredibly stupid argument again. But that this was used verbatim by Cheney means one of two things:

1. David Brooks is a whore for the Republican Party.
2. The Republicans actually got this from Brooks.

I hope to God that it's the first one--that Brooks is a terrible editorialist is clear and that he would just turn Republican talking points into columns wouldn't be that surprising. If it's actually #2, I'm even more scared for a second Bush administration. If they are so desperate for ideas that they are taking them from bad newspaper columns, God save this country.