Premature Anti-Bushite

Paul Krugman observes that "Even now, it’s better for your reputation not to have noticed until, say, 2005 that we had some dangerous people running the country. If you noticed earlier — or, worse yet, you caught on to the administration’s essential mendacity right from the beginning — it’s not a sign that maybe you had good judgment. It shows that you were an irrational Bush hater."

Indeed, a bit like the concept of the premature anti-fascist it's considered a bit disreputable to have been too right, too early on. After all, the "logic" seems to go, a dogmatic pacificist would have been opposed to invading Iraq from the get-go, and dogmatic pacifism is wrong, "therefore" early opposition to the war is probably a sign of unsound views. It's absurd and it's a problem.

I'll note that in politico-media terms, I think this would be an underrated reason to welcome a Barack Obama Administration. His ascendancy would, as such, end the marginalization of early war opponents by bringing a bunch of them -- including himself -- into top positions. A Hillary Clinton Administration, by contrast, even if it governs extremely effectively will also serve to perpetuate the idea that the smart money is always on war irrespective of the circumstances.

Comments

There were three things that deeply disturbed me about Bush very early on:

1) Bush's interview with Tucker Carlson and his cruel attitude toward the execution of Karla Faye Tucker. It's one thing to sign the death warrant. It is another thing to mock the condemned. It said to me that he did not attribute dignity to people he didn't think deserved it and he showed a tremendous lack of empathy and seriousness.

2) The remark about how "It would be easier if we lived in a dictatorship and he were dictator." For a President to even joke about that shit is reprehensible and sends the wrong message.

3) The racist way his campaign went about attacking John McCain in the South Carolina primary. It said to me that when on the ropes, Bush wouldn't hesitate to lie, cheat, steal or sow divisive discontent to achieve his goals. There is fighting hard and there is fighting immorally.

I think these three incidents together gives a pretty good picture of the disaster that our country has suffered over the last seven years. It concerns me that a significant portion of the population would consider these three things good.

Posted by calipygian | December 27, 2007 9:25 AM

I agree, and let me add that the international community doesn't care about US health care or tax reform, but for obvious reasons they're keeping a very close eye on the foreign policy record of the candidates. Both Edwards and Clinton share responsibility for the greatest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam and 100s of thousands of dead civilians. 95% of the world was against the Iraq war and nominating those responsible for it would send a clear message to the world, that the US doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Forgive and forget, we were misled, mistakes were made - they just don't cut it when it comes to Iraq.

OT: Bhutto just got shot dead.

Posted by novakant | December 27, 2007 9:36 AM

"Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech was the last reasonable chance to start opposing Bush/Cheney's response to 9/11. Sorry to be nasty about it, but anyone who waited longer than that was a fool.

Posted by Gary Sugar | December 27, 2007 9:48 AM

Howard Dean remains the poster child for Krugman's observation. If you go back and look at what Dean was saying in 2003, his predictions about what would go wrong in Iraq were eerily prescient. He was the very definition of "shrill."

No "serious person" in Washington will ever give Dean credit for being almost perfectly right. Indeed, to the degree that Dean gets any credit at all, it's for shutting his mouth and becoming a part of the party machinery since taking over the DNC.

I will say this, however: in politics, and perhaps in life in general, being "right too soon" often backfires. The history books might regard you as a visionary, but your contemporaries rarely admit you were right.

Posted by owenz | December 27, 2007 9:53 AM

I'll note that in politico-media terms, I think this would be an underrated reason to welcome a Barack Obama Administration. His ascendancy would, as such, end the marginalization of early war opponents by bringing a bunch of them -- including himself -- into top positions. A Hillary Clinton Administration, by contrast, even if it governs extremely effectively will also serve to perpetuate the idea that the smart money is always on war irrespective of the circumstances.

Nope. Obama is very much about showing himself to be one of the "very serious people", and you can be sure that he will choose from the "very serious people" for the state and defense departments.

Best choice is Edwards, who has said that he was wrong from the start, and called out the term "war on terror".

Posted by Matthew G. Saroff | December 27, 2007 9:53 AM

You need to look at more than just opinions-- after all, in a more-or-less democracy, you're going to get more-or-less every possible opinion on every possible subject-- the reasoning matters. So, when, e.g., Daniel Davies reasoned early on that the patent incompetence of the Bush administration meant that the war in Iraq would inevitably be a horrible mess, he was both right and correct.

Posted by MattF | December 27, 2007 9:56 AM

"an underrated reason to welcome a Barack Obama Administration."

It is exemplary of my only reason: Obama has always been liberal. So I trust him - well, at least in comparison to other politicians.

Posted by Gary Sugar | December 27, 2007 10:01 AM

I would like to be the first on record in opposition to the invasion & occupation of Albania by Uruguay, 2037.

Is this premature?

Posted by El Cid | December 27, 2007 10:01 AM

Obama's early antiwar stance is overrated, if still a point in his relative favor. At the time Obama was a local politician, serving a relatively antiwar constituency, and didn't yet have any legitimate or known Presidential aspirations. He had no particular political pressures to support war in Iraq. His original stance was not the exercise in great courage some make it out to have been, though it was still a step or two up from the cowardice of many of the other current candidates.

That said, there is something to the point that an Obama Presidency would cut back on nonsensical press and Village™ opining about the "seriousness" of an early antiwar stance. This says, of course, a lot more about the press and the Village™ than about Obama's relative ability to lead us out of Iraq, and electing a President in part because of speculation--albeit reasonably well founded speculation--about how inanely stupid people will feel and report about the matter is a dicey business at best.

Posted by R Johnston | December 27, 2007 10:06 AM

it's considered a bit disreputable to have been too right, too early on.

And, alas, this has occured multiple times in US history.

And, it's amazingly counterproductive too. From an "evolutionary" point of view, we have a situation where fitness is dependent not on being right but on not having been right. Which means that in the punditocracy, chattering and political classes, wrongheadedness proliferates and out competes clear thinking (maybe I'm paranoid, but is this why "they" don't want kids to learn about evolution? so that they don't have people pointing out how bad it is to reward wrongheadedness and punish good prognostication?).

What we need is someone outspoken enough to confront people with this tendancy (which, given how often progressives naturally are "on the side of history", helps strengthen the liberal narrative) and call certain people on it.

Unfortunately, the candidate in the best position to do so is too interested in "transcending differences" to actually point out that he was right and others were wrong.

Posted by DAS | December 27, 2007 10:08 AM

Tell it, brother.

And if Obama were the nominee and picked Jim Webb as his running-mate: how sweet it would be. Webb gave an absolutely stunning Dem response to a GWB SOTU address, which was electrifying most of all because he threw his early opposition to the war in the face of the "serious" bipartisan Beltway "experts" Beltway who had endorsed the same. We who opposed the war from the start were right--this was a terrible thing to do. I assume that this is why Webb's speech, probably the best American political speech in many years, was treated respectfully for a week and then flushed down the Village memory hole.

Posted by Doug | December 27, 2007 10:12 AM

Tell it, brother.

And if Obama were the nominee and picked Jim Webb as his running-mate: how sweet it would be. Webb gave an absolutely stunning Dem response to a GWB SOTU address, which was electrifying most of all because he threw his early opposition to the war in the face of the "serious" bipartisan Beltway "experts" Beltway who had endorsed the same. We who opposed the war from the start were right--this was a terrible thing to do. I assume that this is why Webb's speech, probably the best American political speech in many years, was treated respectfully for a week and then flushed down the Village memory hole.

Posted by Doug | December 27, 2007 10:13 AM

I'll note that in politico-media terms, I think this would be an underrated reason to welcome a Barack Obama Administration.

Very insightful and logical inference.

But doesn’t that expose Krugman’s vendetta against Obama for what it is, namely a misguided and unbalanced effort at riding a one-trick pony (health-care policy) in order to bash the one candidate who has shown by his own actions a deeper and broader understanding of what is required to engage and change the mess he will inherit as president?

Posted by Justin X | December 27, 2007 10:17 AM

On the other hand, as opposed to my previous post, has it been lost on everyone that the assassination of Ahamd Shah Masood in Afghanistan was actually part of the 9/11 operation?

Posted by calpygian | December 27, 2007 10:19 AM

I'm a veteran. My brothers, father and uncles were all veterans.

I'm not a pacifist, and being called a traitor for being right about this catastrophe has been a galling if educational experience.

Posted by Nick | December 27, 2007 10:28 AM

I opposed the Iraq Invasion from the get-go, not from any reflexive pacifism or Irrational Bush Hatred, but for the right reason: it was a really fucking stupid idea.

Posted by ed | December 27, 2007 10:31 AM

There's no such thing as "irrational Bush hatred". It's an oxymoron, like, say, "irrational fear of death".

Posted by abb1 | December 27, 2007 10:37 AM

So why has Krugman devoted so much energy to aiding the campaign of this character, who was an extremely late-comer to the "dangerous people are running the country" party.

Posted by Dan Kervick | December 27, 2007 10:40 AM

Obama's early antiwar stance is overrated, if still a point in his relative favor. At the time Obama was a local politician, serving a relatively antiwar constituency, and didn't yet have any legitimate or known Presidential aspirations.

Perhaps not, in the strictest sense, he was a State Seneator representing liberal Hyde Park, but he was about to launch his campaign for U.S. Senate in Illinois, which has a rather large and politically diverse population, not just Chicago, and you can bet folk downstate were not "reflexively anti-war" in 2002.

Posted by someone who was there | December 27, 2007 10:41 AM

Wasn't Matt Yglesias wrong about the war early on? If that's the case, and Matt's reason for opposing Hillary is that we shouldn't trust her because she was wrong early on, isn't the logical conclusion that we also shouldn't trust Matt because he was wrong about the war early on? Ergo, since Matt supports Obama, we shouldn't support Obama, right?

(Note, this is meant to be snarky, but it is also meant to expose Matt's flawed logic).

Posted by dkr | December 27, 2007 10:46 AM

"On the other hand, as opposed to my previous post, has it been lost on everyone that the assassination of Ahamd Shah Masood in Afghanistan was actually part of the 9/11 operation?"

To the extent that I know anything about it, I thought that was the conventional wisdom.

I also remember the Northern Alliance's retaliation by hitting Kabul with missiles or airstrikes being mistaken for a U.S. response on 9/11.

Posted by witless chum | December 27, 2007 10:46 AM

"Nope. Obama is very much about showing himself to be one of the "very serious people", and you can be sure that he will choose from the "very serious people" for the state and defense departments.
Best choice is Edwards, who has said that he was wrong from the start, and called out the term "war on terror"."

Oh pleeeze. He's just trying to find a place in this race. He wasn't saying he was wrong in 2004. He only started that - and his super-aggressive populism - when he was seeking an identity in this race.

Obama's been consistent throughout the whole thing (talking to enemies, taking nukes off the table against terrorist camps - positions for which he was ridiculed as being "naive" but are now the norm in the Democratic race.)

Obama has Samantha Power as one of his senior advisers. She is the antithesis of a "very serious person." If you know anything about her, her endorsement should tell you all you need to know about Obama's feeling about the "very serious people."

Posted by waka waka | December 27, 2007 10:55 AM

"Nope. Obama is very much about showing himself to be one of the "very serious people", and you can be sure that he will choose from the "very serious people" for the state and defense departments.
Best choice is Edwards, who has said that he was wrong from the start, and called out the term "war on terror"."

Oh pleeeze. He's just trying to find a place in this race. He wasn't saying he was wrong in 2004. He only started that - and his super-aggressive populism - when he was seeking an identity in this race.

Obama's been consistent throughout the whole thing (talking to enemies, taking nukes off the table against terrorist camps - positions for which he was ridiculed as being "naive" but are now the norm in the Democratic race.)

Obama has Samantha Power as one of his senior advisers. She is the antithesis of a "very serious person." If you know anything about her, her endorsement should tell you all you need to know about Obama's feeling about the "very serious people."

Posted by waka waka | December 27, 2007 10:56 AM

This is Rove 101. Attack your opponent's perceived strength and try to turn it into a weakness. Up is down. Really shocking to see a Hillary shill use this "logic." Hillary's support for the most obvious fuck-up in human history is her great strength, I tells ya. Crazy people like Obama obviously have and have always had Bush Derangement Syndrome -- gosh, anyone who opposed invading Iraq (before we even tried!!) has to have some sort of irrational hatred for Bush.

Wow. Congratulations, Paul Krugman, you can echo the same wingnut talking point we've been hearing for 5 years now. Anything for Hillary, I guess.

Posted by jim | December 27, 2007 11:08 AM

Wasn't Matt Yglesias wrong about the war early on? - dkr

But MY has taken some steps to learn from his mistakes in this arena. Which is very different than saying "the people who were right when I was wrong were 'pre-maturely right' and as such are not to be trusted".

Posted by DAS | December 27, 2007 11:14 AM

Mistakes were made, lessons learned.

Posted by abb1 | December 27, 2007 11:16 AM

jim (et al),

How is Krugman pulling a Rove trick on behalf of HRC? I thought the K-man was behind Edwards?

If anything, Krugman is pointing out that the Rovian talking point of "Hillary's support for the most obvious fuck-up in human history is her great strength, I tells ya" and arguing how wrong-headed it really is ... isn't he?

Posted by DAS | December 27, 2007 11:16 AM

when he was seeking an identity in this race:

He only started that

Maybe. I can't say I recall exactly.

and his super-aggressive populism

Nope. Remember Edwards was mocked by the Kewl Kidz (who in the typical fashion of bullies mocked someone whom they really feared would otherwise call them out) for his populism (and for his "hypocrisy") even back in the 2004 race, in which he had all of his "two Americas" talk (taken from Riis I reckon).

Posted by DAS | December 27, 2007 11:22 AM

Some people who opposed the invasion of Iraq did so because they believed it would lead to a quagmire--that would include people like George H.W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell. But they were too early, and when it became apparent that the Iraqi regime had duped us into being an unwilling, but still culpable, enabler of genocide, vast corruption, and the continuance in power of one of the worst regimes of the last century, and in a crucial geostrategic location to boot, most changed their minds.

Other people opposed the invasion of Iraq because they simply didn't have a clue, and cared less, about what was going on there as long as they could get cheap energy. A lot of them are now among the ones who think the invasion was "the most obvious fuck up in human history." This does not constitute prescience.

My guess is that the majority of voter will expect a president who is capable of remembering more than four years of history at once, and has some sense of the complexities facing us in the Greater Persian Gulf rather than one who appeals to the most superficial possible analysis.

Posted by Robert Powell | December 27, 2007 11:37 AM

Perhaps not, in the strictest sense, he was a State Seneator representing liberal Hyde Park, but he was about to launch his campaign for U.S. Senate in Illinois, which has a rather large and politically diverse population, not just Chicago, and you can bet folk downstate were not "reflexively anti-war" in 2002

In 2002 the election was 2+ years away, the Republican party was pretty clearly beginning to unravel in Illinois, and an anti-war stance was, looking forward those 2+ years, almost certain to be either moot if the war was over or mildly beneficial if the war was still ongoing. In any event, to whatever extent Obama was thinking about the 2004 Senate election in 2002, he was worrying about the 2004 Democratic primary, not the 2002 views of a rapidly diminishing number of Illinois Republicans. Obama had little-if-any political pressure to take a pro-war stance in 2002, and an anti-war stance appealed to his constituency and wasn't likely to be a problem for him a couple of years down the line.

None of which is to say that Obama's war stance was, in any way, wrong. It just wasn't an act of particular political courage as it is frequently made out to be, and when people use it in an effort to show that Obama's apparently spineless and dangerous rhetoric on bipartisanship, Social Security, and health care is more devious and courageous than spineless and dangerous, arguing that because Obama "obviously" has political courage, they're arguing nonsense.

Posted by R Johnston | December 27, 2007 11:40 AM

The linked essay is pretty fantastic. Everyone should read it.

Posted by ixnaythemetier | December 27, 2007 11:47 AM

In 2002 the election was 2+ years away, the Republican party was pretty clearly beginning to unravel in Illinois, and an anti-war stance was, looking forward those 2+ years, almost certain to be either moot if the war was over or mildly beneficial if the war was still ongoing.

Yeah, but he announced his primary campaign five months later. Regardless of whether it was a great act of political courage it was indeed good judgement and what he felt and everything, everything he said then has been borne out by events. There is no reason to assume he would have behaved differently in the US Senate, there's no way to travel back in time and put him there, it's a completely unfair standard to put him to. What's clear is that Hillary Clinton cast the vote and never apologized for it, nor rationalized it even as well as John Kerry did.

Posted by someone who was there | December 27, 2007 11:58 AM

"I opposed the Iraq Invasion from the get-go, not from any reflexive pacifism or Irrational Bush hatred, but for the right reason: it was a really fucking stupid idea."

U 2 huh? Before Der Buschenfuehrer launched his Operation Fubarossa in Iraq I couldn't make sense of it either. The advantage of being free of all the "right vs. left" nonsense is that you're able to think for yourself without all the reflexive political crap getting in the way. It's the brain bots like MY who are content to be cannon fodder in the elites' phony ideological wars that ALWAYS get it wrong.

Posted by kafka | December 27, 2007 12:01 PM

Damn you ixnaythemetier, I was just about to recommend that people click that link; I also wanted to ask Matt where he heard about the essay.

Posted by washerdreyer | December 27, 2007 12:06 PM

At the time Obama was a local politician, serving a relatively antiwar constituency, and didn't yet have any legitimate or known Presidential aspirations.

This is simply untrue. At the time, he was well on his way to running for the Senate and Senators from deep blue states (New York for example) were running to the right on this issue.

Being against the Iraq war was considered political suicide in 2002. Whatever else you think of Obama, he was willing to take the courageous stand when so many others in a position to stop it were not.

Posted by Jinchi | December 27, 2007 1:03 PM

In 2002 the election was 2+ years away, the Republican party was pretty clearly beginning to unravel in Illinois, and an anti-war stance was, looking forward those 2+ years, almost certain to be either moot if the war was over or mildly beneficial if the war was still ongoing

I think its funny that you can think this is conventional wisdom when you can see the current Congress proving you wrong day after day. Even with support for the war in the low 30's, huge majorities of Americans wanting to get out soon and the repudiation of the Iraq war policy at the polls in 2006, the Democrats in Congress have done what exactly?

They've capitulated in vote after vote to the most incompetent president in history.

It's 5 years later and the Democrats still think they have to be hawkish on Iraq.

Posted by Jinchi | December 27, 2007 1:11 PM

The "liberal" Robert Powell writes: "Some people who opposed the invasion of Iraq did so because they believed it would lead to a quagmire--that would include people like George H.W. Bush, Brent Scowcroft, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell. But they were too early, and when it became apparent that the Iraqi regime had duped us into being an unwilling, but still culpable, enabler of genocide, vast corruption, and the continuance in power of one of the worst regimes of the last century, and in a crucial geostrategic location to boot, most changed their minds."

Worst analysis of the decade, and an obvious whitewashing of true history. The Iraq invasion could NOT HAVE BEEN sold to the public on these grounds, and WAS NOT. The invasion was sold as a necessary and logical development after 9/11, based purely on fear and lies. Any analysis which leaves that out is dishonest, shallow, and contemptible.

The Bushpigs wanted a war and the Democrats were too cowardly to take a stand against it - after 9/11 they saw how public opinion was going. It was a war frenzy, and dead Muslims were needed. That there was no rational connection to 9/11 didn't matter.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | December 27, 2007 1:20 PM

Jinchi,

Exactly. And where is Barak on all of this now? Guess what...he's voting just like Hillary Clinton on the Senate Floor (that is, when he bothers to show up to vote...he didn't seem to feel much of a sense of responsibility in that regard when it came time for Kyl-Lieberman).

In other words, the point you raise is the exact proof of why Obama is not the profile in courage that many of his supporters, including Matt Yglesias, make him out to be. Not that this makes Hillary look any better...but it does make her look the same as Barak. Thus, I still don't see the logic in Matt's argument.

Posted by dkr | December 27, 2007 1:24 PM

There's no such thing as "irrational Bush hatred". It's an oxymoron, like, say, "irrational fear of death".

I couldn't disagree more about the notion of "irrational fear of death".

Death is unavoidable and its going to happen to us regardless of what we do. Even those of us who are young could die on the way home from work today in a car accident or any number of "unnatural" ways.

There ARE lengths that people go to postpone death that I would consider irrational given that they are really only buying time before their inevitable death.

Posted by libarbarian | December 27, 2007 1:25 PM

Nah, for a living organism fear of death is fundamentally rational. Just like Bush-hatred.

Posted by abb1 | December 27, 2007 1:33 PM

Nah, for a living organism fear of death is fundamentally rational.

Why?

I always see this put forward as an unquestionable axiom but, like I said, there are cases where choosing death seems rational to me.

Posted by libarbarian | December 27, 2007 1:52 PM

Best choice is Edwards, who has said that he was wrong from the start, and called out the term "war on terror".

No way. A vote for Edwards just means that you can vote to murder 3,800 brave American servicemembers, and as long as you admit later you were wrong, you pay no cost. It's not enough to admit you were wrong. Let Edwards spend some time in the wilderness contemplating all the people who will never see their brave sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, husbands, or wives again because of what he did.

This is just like Lieberman-Lamont. We have to put the fear in the hearts of anyone who thinks that voting to kill people is always an electoral winner. And that means nominating and winning the Presidency with Obama.

Posted by Dilan Esper | December 27, 2007 2:09 PM

Obama's early antiwar stance is overrated, if still a point in his relative favor. At the time Obama was a local politician, serving a relatively antiwar constituency, and didn't yet have any legitimate or known Presidential aspirations.

That's completely backward. Obama, had he supported the war, would have caused no harm. In contrast, Edwards and Clinton had the constitutional power and responsibility to make the decision as to whether to authorize war. Their votes to do so directly and deliberately caused the death of 3,800 brave American servicemembers.

Posted by Dilan Esper | December 27, 2007 2:14 PM

So, I guess that Barak has been on the senate floor since 2004 filibustering every bill, making speech after speech, voting against Kyl-Lieberman...in other words, doing everything he can do given his constitutioal power and responsiblility, to stop this war and avoid others, right? Oh, no wait, he hasn't. So, I guess he is as directly and deliberately responsible for everything as Hillary is.

Posted by dkr | December 27, 2007 2:43 PM

To completely the walk through Rove's looking glass here, I heard a bit of a radio interview with Huckabee last night. I've not been avoiding Huck as much as he has been avoiding me, so to speak, but apparently he's now gutting it out on major media in advance of Russert this weekend.

All I can say is wow. Before I knew it was Huck, I assumed the interviewee was just another pod person ("the American people have to understand that this is a theological struggle"), but he is, sure as shootin' portraying his greatest weaknesses as strengths. AND, finally, a president who will do something about airline flight delays.

Back on this side of the divide, I've taken no pleasure in being right all along, and I'm still trying to comprehend how so many of the MY's of the world were so wrong at the time. I understand how politicians can be stampeded into anything, then freak out at a hint of waffle, but the MY's of the world aren't running for anything. What rationality said Yes to extending the response to 9/11 to Iraq?

Posted by rickhavoc | December 27, 2007 3:12 PM

This is just like Lieberman-Lamont. We have to put the fear in the hearts of anyone who thinks that voting to kill people is always an electoral winner. - Dilan Esper

And putting fear in the heart of Lieberman has changed things how?

Posted by DAS | December 27, 2007 4:05 PM

So, I guess that Barak has been on the senate floor since 2004 filibustering every bill, making speech after speech, voting against Kyl-Lieberman...in other words, doing everything he can do given his constitutioal power and responsiblility, to stop this war and avoid others, right? Oh, no wait, he hasn't. So, I guess he is as directly and deliberately responsible for everything as Hillary is.
Posted by dkr | December 27, 2007 2:43 PM

This is virtually identical to the Republican argument that Edwards can't be sincere about poverty unless he gives everything he has to the poor.

No. Clinton supported the war. Obama opposed it. Edwards admitted his support was wrong. Clinton won't admit it. Neither Obama nor Edwards has to be perfect to be better than Clinton.

Posted by Gary Sugar | December 27, 2007 4:13 PM

So, I guess that Barak has been on the senate floor since 2004 filibustering every bill, making speech after speech, voting against Kyl-Lieberman...in other words, doing everything he can do given his constitutioal power and responsiblility, to stop this war and avoid others, right? Oh, no wait, he hasn't. So, I guess he is as directly and deliberately responsible for everything as Hillary is.

Nope. Because there's a big difference between starting a war and stopping it.

I actually agree that Obama isn't doing near enough to stop the war. None of them are. (By the way, if, for instance, Clinton or Edwards were actually filibustering every war spending bill and putting her political clout behind the measures of people like Kucinich, Murtha, and Feingold to end the war, I might have a very different view on the need to create negative incentives for people who vote for dumb wars.)

But there is a lot of inertia-- and executive power-- behind the determination of whether to keep a war going. Which is why the vote to start it is so important. Unfortunately, Edwards and Clinton thought killing 3,800 brave Americans was an excellent idea, and voted their malformed consciences.

Posted by Dilan Esper | December 27, 2007 5:55 PM

Meanwhile I was saying more than a year ago that an attack on Iran was almost certain - and absolutely nobody agreed with me.

Until everybody agreed with me - Scott Ritter, Philip Giraldi, Joseph Cirincione, and numerous other intelligence experts and pundits started sounding the alarm.

Today, everybody thinks the NIE has eliminated that possibility.

Or they think the next Dem President would NEVER attack Iran - despite every single one of them calling Iran a "threat" and refusing to take "all options" off the table.

You'll find out.

Matt is STILL wrong on Iran's nuclear energy program, even if he claims - or more precisely, hints, since he's never answered my two specific questions - that he's against invading Iran. And he's never mentioned sanctions once, so presumably he's in favor of those.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 27, 2007 5:56 PM

And putting fear in the heart of Lieberman has changed things how?

Lieberman managed to squeak by ONLY because the Republicans in Connecticut ignored their own candidate and de facto endorsed Lieberman. That won't happen ANYWHERE else, and the precedent that a vote to murder 3,800 brave American servicemembers gets you knocked out in the primary is a precedent that will keep a lot of Democratic senators in line in the future.

Posted by Dilan Esper | December 27, 2007 5:58 PM

M,L,&J--try to escape from the echo chamber.

Large sample, good methodology Gallup polling done about twice a year between 1991 and 2002 showed always a majority of voters, at times approaching 3:1 and averaging about 2:1 for the whole period, answered "yes" to the unambiguous question, "Would you support the use of US troops for the removal from power of Saddam Hussein?".

The percentage of "yes" responses was 70% in 1993, by which time it had become obvious that the Iraqi regime would not fall as a result of Desert Storm. George Bush was at this time a n'er do well businessman in Texas. Please explain how this comports with your distorted and evidence-free attempt to write history with gossip, rumors, and partisan lies.

Posted by robert powell | December 27, 2007 6:15 PM

I have to second or third the recommendations above. If you haven't read the link, go back and do it now. It made my day.

Posted by Nat | December 27, 2007 7:26 PM

And putting fear in the heart of Lieberman has changed things how?

Lieberman's primary loss is underrated by too many. He was a former media star known as "even the Democrat Joe Lieberman" and he gave cover to all manner of people who argued that Democrats had to be more hawkish and more socially conservative to compete for the vote of real Americans. He was cast out of his party (and nearly the Senate) by the voters of his party - not the party brass. One more Democrat in the Senate and he'll be completely irrelevant. That's a very big deal.

Posted by Jinchi | December 27, 2007 8:26 PM

In this case, early-opposers were vindicated, however the prejudice against "being right too early" is rational.

An affirming or negating opinion can be the result of information processing skill or the result of biased and sloppy thinking. Prior to crossing a certain time-threshold, any strong opinion is far more likely to be the result of bias than good sense because information is insufficient. In an "early decision" state, the level of uncertainty in any conclusion must, perforce, be very high because countervailing factors may have yet to reveal themselves.

An individual who, at an early date, arrives at a position with a great deal of certainty either has privileged information outweighing any possible future developments, truly exceptional processing skills, or is a victim of biased, sloppy thinking.

An outcome will inevitably reveal itself over time, arriving to the chorus of I-told-you-sos from early adopters. Hindsight bias and confirmation bias will always cause early adopters to believe their conclusions to have been based on sound logic when bias may have played a likely role.

An early-adopter in this case is far more likely to have been a lucky fool than a sage.

That said, the failure of the current administration seems like a pretty terribly foregone conclusion. The REALLY relevant point is that FAILING to abandon incorrect opinions AFTER your error is revealed leaves no room for interpretation: you are an idiot, full stop.

Posted by K. Larson | December 27, 2007 9:27 PM

In this case, early-opposers were vindicated, however the prejudice against "being right too early" is rational.

An affirming or negating opinion can be the result of information processing skill or the result of biased and sloppy thinking. Prior to crossing a certain time-threshold, any strong opinion is far more likely to be the result of bias than good sense because information is insufficient. In an "early decision" state, the level of uncertainty in any conclusion must, perforce, be very high because countervailing factors may have yet to reveal themselves.

An individual who, at an early date, arrives at a position with a great deal of certainty either has privileged information outweighing any possible future developments, truly exceptional processing skills, or is a victim of biased, sloppy thinking.

An outcome will inevitably reveal itself over time, arriving to the chorus of I-told-you-sos from early adopters. Hindsight bias and confirmation bias will always cause early adopters to believe their conclusions to have been based on sound logic when bias may have played a likely role.

An early-adopter in this case is far more likely to have been a lucky fool than a sage.

That said, the failure of the current administration seems like a pretty terribly foregone conclusion. The REALLY relevant point is that FAILING to abandon incorrect opinions AFTER your error is revealed leaves no room for interpretation: you are an idiot, full stop.

Posted by K. Larson | December 27, 2007 9:33 PM

pre-2004: winner Obama
post-2004: winner Edwards

Obama was right about the AUMF before being elected to the Senate. Where he went wrong was hedging 'well I don't know what the intelligence....' and then doing very little to end the war since he wanted to run for president.

Edwards was very wrong about the AUMF. He has been very outspoken about the war since the 2004 election but he hasn't been in a position to do anything about it. (Dilan Esper you do realize only members of the Senate can filibuster, right?)

Clinton has been wrong about the war continually.

The moral of the story: It is much easier to make good decisions about war when you are not a US Senator running for president.

Posted by realist | December 27, 2007 10:27 PM

He was a former media star known as "even the Democrat Joe Lieberman" and he gave cover to all manner of people who argued that Democrats had to be more hawkish and more socially conservative to compete for the vote of real Americans. He was cast out of his party (and nearly the Senate) by the voters of his party - not the party brass. - Jinchi

Nu? Now they say "even the Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman" (and what a wonderful feller he must be ... so "independent" ) and whine along with him about how the Democratic party has been taken over by a bunch of nuts who cast a nice, moderate feller like him out.

He's still giving cover for the same people. Maybe a little less effectively, but it's still the same ol' Joe and same ol' Villagers ...

Posted by DAS | December 28, 2007 11:09 AM

The moral of the story: It is much easier to make good decisions about war when you are not a US Senator running for president. - realist

Ach-aaaaa! Therein lies the problem (and it's the same one as the "premature anti-Bushist" issue).

Our system was built on the assumption that "ambition would be made to challenge ambition" (to adapt a famous Madison quote). It should have been easier for Senators running for President to make the right decision about the war, because they should have been able to make a political splash by opposing the President.

Now, instead of people celebrating someone for making a political splash, even if they only did it for political reasons, we say "ah, So-and-So is merely playing politics" as if that's a bad thing. Fundamentally, this is un-democratic (again, c.f. Madison), but since our national discourse is dominated by the neo-aristocracy of the kewl kids who actively oppose real democracy, whaddya expect?

If politicians felt it was in their political interest to oppose the war, they would have opposed it. That they so obviously, as you point out, felt it was not in their political interest to oppose the war indicates there is something really broken about our system.

And it really is the pearl clutching, un-democratic kewl kids (as well as the growing cultural influence of historically anti-political -- even if they now have politicized themselves into a major component of the religious right -- pre-millenialist Christianity) who have convinced everyone to adopt their view of politics (and ultimately democracy) as being inherently tainted.

But how do we kick out the aristocrats without having to be Jacobins?

Posted by DAS | December 28, 2007 11:18 AM

"An early-adopter in this case is far more likely to have been a lucky fool than a sage."

No, because in this case, early adopters weren't actually early. It just looked that way in America. Outside America, the entire world thought it was a crazy idea on the first day and never stopped thinking it was a crazy idea.

Kevin Drum sort of admitted one time that his really bad judgment was the result of peer pressure. That's as good an explanation as any, much better at least than Hillary Clinton's, "We were all wrong", which is a lie.

Posted by Gary Sugar | December 28, 2007 11:47 AM

Edwards was very wrong about the AUMF. He has been very outspoken about the war since the 2004 election but he hasn't been in a position to do anything about it. (Dilan Esper you do realize only members of the Senate can filibuster, right?)

Edwards could be leading protest marches. He could be demanding that Congress pull the funding. He could be doing lots of things-- beyond a VERY anodyne "I was wrong" which doesn't recognize the gravity of the fact he KILLED 3,800 BRAVE AMERICAN SERVICEMEMBERS-- to show that he is truly contrite and is willing to take political risks to stop the war.

He hasn't done any of that, which is why he doesn't convince me that he has learned anything at all.

Posted by Dilan Esper | December 28, 2007 2:37 PM