Turn on CNN and chances are you won't have to wait long to see the face of Stephen Hayes, who distinguished himself earlier this decade for his insistence, long after it was clear that the opposite was true, that "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to plot against Americans." He also penned a fawning biography of Dick Cheney.

Or pick up the Washington Post, the same paper that gave Mr. Gerson his post-Bush home, and you'll find a regular op-ed column from William Kristol, the tireless Iraq war champion whose offerings, worse than being wrong, are usually unreadable; Or there's Ron Christie, a little-known Bush and Cheney aide who has somehow become one of the cable networks' go-to guys for the conservative viewpoint - which he unfailingly expresses with the language his old bosses favored when they were in power.

All of these people, of course, are entitled to their views. But, besides outdated and discredited bluster, they add nothing to the current discussion.