A little humility is good for folks at both ends of the spectrum. Here's a teaser from today's NY Times column by David Brooks.
The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.
The column is The Bush Paradox by David Brooks. It's a good reminder that we don't always get it right either. (And there's an interesting response to the David Brooks column by Joe Klein of Time Magazine.)
The cocksure war supporters learned this humbling lesson during the dark days of 2006. And now the cocksure surge opponents, drunk on their own vindication, will get to enjoy their season of humility. They have already gone through the stages of intellectual denial. First, they simply disbelieved that the surge and the Petraeus strategy was doing any good. Then they accused people who noticed progress in Iraq of duplicity and derangement. Then they acknowledged military, but not political, progress. Lately they have skipped over to the argument that Iraq is progressing so well that the U.S. forces can quickly come home.
The column is The Bush Paradox by David Brooks. It's a good reminder that we don't always get it right either. (And there's an interesting response to the David Brooks column by Joe Klein of Time Magazine.)