Katrina vanden Heuvel, and America's more dogmatic leftists, should learn a simple debating trick: concede the occasional point. It creates at least the illusion of intellectual honesty; a concession can disorient an opponent, whose key argument suddenly finds no resistance; and it reassures the Popperist that your beliefs are testable propositions rather than articles of a wasting faith.

I've been thinking the past few days about the abject silence with which every shrill criticism of the left is met with by the Bush administration. Bush and friends know there is no upside to addressing that criticism; they will never reach any agreement, understanding, or acceptance from that camp, so why accede to any of their demands? That fact points up Denton's comment above.