Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
In an excellent post that you should read in full on the death of shame in our political pundit class, Glenn Greenwald begins with this.
With virtually all of the predictions made by proponents of the Iraq invasion having been proven false, with a true strategic disaster on our hands, and with most of the country having concluded that the war was a mistake, war supporters have been desperately searching around for some way to salvage their reputations. On Thursday, John Hinderaker unleashed this self-justifying plea:
In truth, we likely won't know whether the Iraq war was a success or a failure, a good idea or a bad idea, for another twenty or thirty years, when the consequences of the effort not only in Iraq, but throughout the region, become clear. For now, we can only guess.
So even though it looks like everything war supporters said before the invasion was false and the war looks like a huge mistake, we can't actually know for sure until 2 or 3 decades from now, so we should check back with them in around 2026 or so.
Right.
TrackBackThat's what Hinderaker's parents said. Sub "having a child without a functioning frontal lobe" for "the Iraq War."
I'm not sure, but I think that the goalposts have been torn down, broken into individual parts, shredded, buried, dug up again, and thrown into the ocean.
Posted by: norbizness at March 20, 2006 01:02 PMWe won't be able to tell whether there ever were any goalposts for another 20 or 30 years, norb.
Posted by: apostropher at March 20, 2006 01:29 PMHe is setting up to take credit for any success within the next 30 years. The Iraqis themselves will not be given credit.
Posted by: Ru at March 20, 2006 06:49 PMIn truth, we likely won't know whether the Iraq war was a success or a failure, a good idea or a bad idea, for another twenty or thirty years, when the consequences of the effort not only in Iraq, but throughout the region, become clear. For now, we can only guess.
That's what I love about Hinderaker: He doesn't just sit around moping when the fallacies run out; he goes busily to work creating new ones.
This new attraction of his toward Eastern, non-linear modes of thinking is quite exciting. Someday soon we might hear a soft rustle from a Minneapolean direction, and it will be Hinderaker's clothes accordioning to the floor as his corpus transits into that Buddhist hell reserved for those who use language to confound and misdirect.
He does give a new meaning to the term 'Shit for Brains'.
Posted by: mikefromtexas at March 21, 2006 06:01 AMI would love to see everyday criminals start applying the same logic: "Your honor, I don't think we can judge whether it was a good idea to [insert crime of your choice here] for twenty or thirty more years. After all, you don't know what I might yet do with {the money from that bank,the scammed proceeds from that financial scam,et cetera}. We must let history sit in judgement, mustn't we? Let's not get all in a rush to pronounce a verdict just yet."
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at March 21, 2006 01:29 PM