Friday, July 27, 2007

Mea Culpa from Andrew Sullivan

Some people will never forgive him for being a big Bush and Iraq war cheerleader at the start - I think he's made up for it with his caustic attacks on the Bushies since then. Plus, things won't really change in the US until the conservatives abandon the Bushies - Sullivan has been an outrider for the soul-searching American conservatives will need to do.
One of my own errors before the war was a function of being steeped in Washington policy debates - and neo-conservative arguments - for years. I had been so conditioned to suspect Iraq after 9/11 that my skepticism deserted me. I mentioned Saddam on September 12. The result was that the prelude to the Iraq war was far too easily framed by the information and biases of the Beltway elite, the Pentagon establishment, and the neocon brain-trust. Worse, we were unspeakably condescending to those on the outside who were right. We trusted far too much, and people much further away from the levers of power saw more clearly than we did.

2 comments:

Alison said...

Hmm. Good for him.
Those of us on the left in Canada will also have to watch not being "unspeakably condescending" towards the people who didn't get what a clusterfuck Afghanistan is soon enough either.

Cliff said...

Agreed. It's a sure way to get them to subbornly dig in their heels. The usual suspects - see Senator Segall in the Globe last week - are already starting the spin that consensus doesn't actually mean... you know, consensus. Plus expect lots of backtracking from Dion now that what he said he wants is in view.

Some people think this mess is as good as over - I'm not so sure.

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