Most hilarious and despair-inducing deflation of a "public intellectual" since...

...I don't know when.

The "public intellectual" is Michael Ignatieff, who ran for the leadership of Canada's Liberal Party last year. He probably still wants to be PM.

He recently wrote a New York Times Magazine piece (no longer available free at the NYT site) arguing that people like him who supported the Iraq War were at least wrong for the right reasons, unlike those who opposed it for the wrong reasons.

All sorts of reflections grow from this piece (#1 -- I can hardly wait until this despicable specimen is Imperial Proconsul in Canada (actually, I can wait forever); #2 -- Is the New York Times Magazine so desperate for material that they will publish such dishonest self-promotion? It used to be good).

But it's all been said better by a blogger at Huffington Post named David Rees. I honestly got a rolling belly laugh out of it.

It wasn't exactly a happy laugh, though. In one of his more literally truthful passages, Rees says:

Michael Ignatieff is drawing lessons for the future. Michael Ignatieff has a future in public policy. Sure, it's CANADIAN public policy, so it doesn't really count, but still-- it's like the guy can't be stopped. You know why? Because he's at that level where you literally can't make a big enough mistake to be fired, shunned, or indicted. I'd like to visit that level someday.

And there are worse than Ignatieff out there, enjoying the same immunity while sucking down French wine you and I will never even sniff. And don't depend on the big-name media to identify and condemn them.

You have been warned.