Armstrong and Getty have never been as belligerent as much of the post-9/11 rightwing, and they’re usually funny and entertaining rather than just mindlessly hateful and bellicose, but this morning they had one of the most encouraging segments I’ve heard on rightwing radio since the 1990s. They interviewed Robert Baer, author of The Devil We Know, about Iran. He said that Iran was reforming and no longer a major terror sponsor, that there’s no proof they’re behind attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq and besides that should be distinguished from terrorism against civilians, that Ahmadinejad neither spoke for the country nor had the power to wage war, that the Iranians did not want war with Israel or America, because it would mean their demise, that Americans should not want war with Iran because it would be an economic disaster, that the only way to go about Iran’s nuclear ambitions was by honest diplomacy, that the U.S. needs to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan to encourage peace with Iran, that the Afghanistan war has been a pointless calamity since the close of 2001. After he left, the two hosts talked about how conservatism has been distorted by Bush, how he has made utopian and reckless nation-building the center doctrine of the right, when “the George Wills and Pat Buchanans” of the world are much more prudent about foreign policy than that.

There is much to critique and some disingenuousness here — the right has for half a century been dominated by unrealistic warmongers. But hearing this interview this morning made me smile as no rightwing radio has for a long, long time.