Yet still, I cannot write off Cohen, though some mocking over this blinding flash of the obvious is in order. Over the past several years Cohen has pissed me off and he has also had me thinking he has gotten some things right. Mostly I disagree with him but he seems generally reasonable in his commentary. Hey, I aspire to no more than that.
But what to make of his conclusion based on his experience?
The hatred is back. I know it's only words now appearing on my computer screen, but the words are so angry, so roiled with rage, that they are the functional equivalent of rocks once so furiously hurled during antiwar demonstrations. I can appreciate some of it. Institution after institution failed America -- the presidency, Congress and the press. They all endorsed a war to rid Iraq of what it did not have. Now, though, that gullibility is being matched by war critics who are so hyped on their own sanctimony that they will obliterate distinctions, punishing their friends for apostasy and, by so doing, aiding their enemies. If that's going to be the case, then Iraq is a war its critics will lose twice -- once because they couldn't stop it and once more at the polls.
Notice how he so easily calls Republicans the enemy. And places the blame for Leftist anger on so-called failed institutions.
And most importantly, how he says the war did nothing to keep Saddam from getting WMD. Is this so settled as conventional wisdom among opponents of the war? Remember that Cohen once supported the war.
Me? I think that version 5.0 of the conventional wisdom will eventually show that Saddam was pursuing weapons of mass destruction. I suspect he had some on hand until shortly before the war or had the ability to quickly build them. And our invasion prevented Saddam or his sons from having and using them in the future at a time of their choosing.
And when the charge that we invaded a regime without WMD is exposed as false, the rabid hatred of the Left that Cohen laments (and blames on the so-called gullibility of we who supported the war) will endure and grow. How will Cohen explain the rage of the Left then?
