Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Remember neo-neocon?

... the "liberal who became a Conservative? No, better yet became a Neo-Conservative? (Please note respectful capitalisation there ;-) )

Here is one who has made the journey in the opposite direction...
Once upon a time I supported the Iraq war. In a spasm of suspended belief, I decided as someone who bleeds red, white and blue for his country that I should go along with George Bush’s declarations that Saddam Hussein was a threat even though I knew that my president was a devious liar who put politics ahead of policy. And that I was throwing my support behind what was bound to be a Godawful war.
This decision came, as it did for what I would imagine was a goodly number of people to the left of the right, on the morning of February 5, 2003, as I listened to Secretary of State Colin Powell use what we were later to learn was cooked intelligence regarding WMDs and nukes in declaring to the U.N. that Saddam was a very bad man. (At least he had the last part right.)

Bloodied and bowed, but a whole lot more alive than the 3,100-plus American soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, I look back on my four-year journey from reluctant supporter to vociferous opponent with shock and awe.


and his conclusion is sad, to say the least...
There are opportunists in the blogosphere who are using the war to promote themselves. Am I one of them? The answer is an equivocal yes. Of course I'm promoting myself every time that I click on the PUBLISH button and send my thoughts out into the blogosphere.

That noted, I would like to think that I am helping pierce the fog of this war. Nevertheless, I can hardly bear to look at that Baghdad map any more, although it’s a rare day that I don’t get up ready to answer the bell.

By my rough count, I have written about 500 pieces on the war. This falls short of the number of bylines I got covering the O.J. Simpson criminal and civil trials, but at least they had endings.


I’m not so sure about the war.

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