Of This We Are Proud

Joe Klein, on his support for Teh Glorious Iraqi Adventure:

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Yep.

Let's just hear that again. Mr. Klein, on the subject of the war in Iraq, back in the day, you were...?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Sorry, but I lived through that insane American autumn of 2002 and got yelled at constantly by Serious Thinkers that my ability to perceive the  obvious rendered me a craaaaaaazy man, and so I'm a bit deaf. Can I get that once more? Mr. Klein, you were....?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And over again?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Now the seniors in the back!

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I just may never get tired of this.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Too fucking right, you were.

UPDATE. You know, this is not a minor point: it really was not all that difficult to come to the correct conclusion, even in that terrible autumn and winter, one of the darkest and most corrupt seasons in all of American history. All the evidence was there; if you weren't driven mad by something or other, you should have been out on the streets saying "NO."

I'm not going to disagree with Klein on the "stupid, stupid, stupid" thing, but it was more willful blindness than that, though stupidity sure played a part. 

Comments

[K. Ron Silkwood]

Place cupidity, bloodlust, incompetence, arrogance, racism, and religious and social intolerance on the plate, covered by a thick ropey sauce of stupidity to bind them together. Garnish with a few sprigs of false patriotism. Served hot or cold it will kill hundreds of thousands and delude millions. Serve as necessary until the brutes are exterminated or until both countries are too weak to cook anymore.

[chicago dyke]

bloodlust, racism and greed. if we're naming names, let's do so. arrogance probably fits in there somewhere, as well as insecurity and the desire to measure up to the "greatest generation."

this was, and remains, about money. the sycophants who cheerlead were and remain minor players and we overemphasize them at our peril. "sweep it all up." "the wmds were what we decided upon." "it will pay for itself in X months." 000s of millions "lost," sometimes bales at a time. the drug trade.

anyway, klein and his ilk are using "stupid" now because they don't want to say what they really felt. killing and bombing is exciting to him, it was then and it would be again, if there were the 'right' target. he got off on watching his power daddies talk tough with cnn warnewz video on the in the background. he's that shallow, and inhumane. it's what makes him a consummate Villager. stupid is far to kind, and he knows it. i know better.

[drip]

Too late with the admission, but at least better than the NYT week in review columnists who are too late and still wrong.

[SteveB]

You left out the very next sentence:

And yet, I do take some solace from the non-triumphalist tone of the column and especially from the last two paragraphs, which hold up pretty well five years later:

So more than a million people are dead and four million are refugees, but, on the other hand, the last two paragraphs of Joe Klein's column seem to be holding up pretty well.

[actor212]

I agree with you, Thers, this goes beyond stupidity. This goes straight to abject cheerleading, which by itself would be enough to have him up for war crimes in any other country.

[rea]

You know, if I had a record of being grossly wrong about every single issue within the sphere of my profession, I'd find another line of work. But maybe that's just me . . .

[va]

Meh. If Klein had the kind of integrity he's pretending to have, the choice phrase would have been "Evil, evil, evil."

As in, "Clearly, the column was written with the assumption that 'winnability' is a good criterion for starting a war. Evil, evil, evil."

[Bob]

rea hits the nail on the head. Look, bark any right-wing pit bull nonsense you want when writing in the Weekly Standard, or the National Review, but when writing for Time, or the NYT's (yes you Smirking Billy) shouldn't there be some limit to incompetence? If I made as many fundamental mistakes in my line of work as these highly paid individuals do I wouldn't have the option of looking for a new line of work - I'd be fired and have no choice.

[Batocchio]

I'd be inclined to give Klein some credit for a little humility, which isn't normally his style, but SteveB and va sorta put that in perspective.

Well put, Thers. This is the dynamic that probably drives me up the wall the most. There's also the insistence by hawks — especially the supposedly liberal variety — that they were right at the time, or wrong for the right reasons, while those who opposed a war of choice was right for the wrong reasons. The hawks are still wrong, but O'Hanlon and the rest will go on whining about how they get no respect for being fucking morons, and unrepentant fucking morons, at that. As if opposing war, and being skeptical about arguments for it, were such radical positions never before conceived of in human history. Going to war and not going to war are not equally valid options, as much as Jonathan Chait and Anne-Marie Slaughter and the rest whine otherwise.

The only two things necessary to avoid war with Iraq were a decent bullshit detector and a high threshold for war in our politicians and press. Neither require high security briefings.

There's actually a blogswarm for March 19th on the Iraq war for any folks who want to participate.

[dadanarchist]

I was never so glad to be living in Portland, Oregon, as during that dark ugly time.

Why?

Because nobody in Portland, except for the morans (sic) who run the Oregonian, was in favor of that clusterfuck.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that the riot that occured in August 2002 outside a Bush fundraiser for Gordon "The Fisherman" Smith was one of the first major protests against the Chimperor post-9/11. I got tear gassed for my troubles.

When the day itself came, Portland was shut down for the better part of 4 hours by roving gangs of anarchist goodniks and bike punks, who managed to block every bridge across the Willamette, Burnside, and for a few minutes, I-5 and I-280.

So what I'm saying is: thank god I lived in a town where the people hated this fucking war from the beginning. It made being right that much easier.

The only ugly incident I had to face was when I got in a heated argument with some guy at the airport in St. Louis (I was transferring flights) because he objected to my "No War on Iraq" button. Somehow I didn't end up a no-fly list.

Ah, memories - I wonder that St. Louivian thinks now.

[flory]

It would've been a much better post if he'd stopped at 'stupid, stupid stupid'....

[Bitter Scribe]

Klein got a lot of undeserved attention for letting people think he was a rogue Clinton staffer when he wrote that stupid book "Primary Colors" as Anonymous. He's been coasting on that ever since.