-
In the interests of full candor, let it be said that I did something very similar. The difference here being that, as I will now admit, I was wrong. Neither the policies being advocated by Bush nor the policies being advocated by the anti-war movement (even at its most mainstream) were the correct ones. What I wanted to see happen wasn't going to happen. I had to throw in with one side or another. I threw in with the wrong side. The bad consequences of the bad policy I got behind are significantly worse than the consequences of the bad policy advocated by the other side would have been. I blame, frankly, vanity. "Bush is right to say we should invade Iraq, but he's going about it the wrong way, here is my nuanced wonderfullness" sounds much more intelligent than some kind of chant at an anti-war rally. In fact, however, it was less intelligent. I got off the bandwagon right before the shooting started, but by then it was far too late -- this was more a case of CYA than a case of efficacious political dissent.
Now I am not an important person, and at the time I was even less important. Nevertheless, the block of opinion of which I was a part included some very influential people. In the aggregate, we were never a very large block of public opinion. We were, however, the all-important swing group. Some of us (represented in the blogosphere by me, Kevin, Josh, etc.) swung too late. Some of us never swung at all. If we had swung earlier (not just the bloggers and the journalists and hawkish Clinton administration veterans, but also the regular folks who had similar opinions) there probably would have been no war. We should have swung earlier.
The reason many people were so incensed about the types of people Matthew is talking about is because the war could have been stopped. If there were few less liberal hawks running around imagining they were "more serious" than the anti-war folks, providing the mushy middle with reason to jump on the war train, it just might have been. The fact that a lot of center-left types, or what qualifies as center-left in our media anyway, took the pro-war position provided the pro-war media an easy excuse to completely marginalize all anti-war opinion.
Even now many of these same people still cling to the conceit that because they were previously for the war they now have a greater degree of credibility on this issue. Well, sorry, you were wrong. There were people who were right. Let them talk for a change.
Another group who should have spoken up earlier and more loudly was the "former generals" group. This was always my big problem with Wesley Clark. I understand that in his role of CNN analyst, which he was doing in the runup to the war, he wasn't supposed to be particularly partisan (though, in these situations being "non-partisan" is an implicit endorsement of the status quo), but this was an important issue damnit. Screw being a CNN analyst! Quit your job and travel around the country trying to convince people that this is a really really bad idea.