The Wrong Stuff

Then:

• “The Buck Stops Here.”
• “Failure is not an option.”
• “I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go.”

Now:

“We didn’t want to get sucked into an operation with uncertainty at the end,” the senior administration official said. “In some ways, how it turns out is not on our shoulders.”

Now that’s winning the future.

(Messrs. Abbott and Costello could not be reached for comment.)