Empirically Wrong
by tristero
Positioning on the Iraq war, however, tended to fall back on values far more heavily than either supporters or critics would prefer to admit, and that’s because the evidence necessary for an empirically-grounded position wasn’t available.
The hell it wasn’t. All you had to do was read, actually read, the testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, listen carefully to what Scott Ritter was saying, and most importantly, listen very carefully to what Bush and Co. were actually saying, as opposed to what people said they were saying.
Positioning on the Iraq War had little to do with values but a lot to do with how susceptible you were to being manipulated and panicked by authority figures. And the world learned the hard way that 2/3’s of this country was highly suggestible and, consequently, scared stiff by an administration doing everything possible to make them feel as terrified as possible.
Values? To the extent that keeping your wits about you when everyone was losing theirs, then yeah, I guess it was about values.
As for the rest of Scott’s argument, it’s the typical reified arguing of the “New Democrats,” that the American electorate leans right, implying that it always will lean right, and we just have to go along and accept that. But to Scott’s credit, at least he admits it’s a complicated picture. Indeed it is, and partly because it is a very inaccurate, blackandwhite picture.
Oh, and Scott? I’m a liberal. The word doesn’t scare me and it shouldn’t scare you.