Jon Rauch is, in my view, the most honest thinker of his generation. Here’s his latest on the Iraq war – fearless, and right. Money quote:
A policeman shoots a robber who has killed in the past and who brandishes what seems to be a gun. The gun turns out to be a cellphone. The policeman expects a thorough investigation (and ought to cooperate). In the end, if he is exonerated, it is not because he made no mistake but because his mistake was justified. Reasonable people, facing uncertainty, would have thought they saw a gun.
George W. Bush and the CIA thought they saw a gun. So did French President Jacques Chirac, who last February warned of Iraq’s “probable possession of weapons of mass destruction.” So did Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor, who last February said, “My personal belief is that Saddam may well possess anthrax and chemical weapons. That being the case, he must be disarmed.”
And now he is. But I’d add something else: WMDs were not the only rationale given for this war before the war. The human rights issue, the immorality of continued sanctions, the necessity of finding a way to facilitate change in the region as a whole – these were all arguments made in advance (on this blog and elsewhere). The war was a justified mistake in one respect. We overstated the WMD angle. But we under-estimated the horrors of what was going on in that country. Shouldn’t that also count in the balance?
POWELL FIGHTS BACK: Tart exchange defending the president in Congress. Tim Perry noticed. Not many did.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I know the pain of being less than equal and I cannot and will not impose that status on anyone else. I was but one generation removed from an existence in slavery. I could not in good conscience ever vote to send anyone to that place from which my family fled.” – African-American state senator in Massachusetts, Diane Wilkerson, on why she supports equal marriage rights for all citizens.
The Dish 