Great Moments in the Passive Voice

The hapless Joe Klein tries to get himself out of the massive hole he’s dug for himself by claiming that “Just because [dirty, smelly hippies who agree with me for what I assume without a shred of evidence to be the wrong reasons are] right about Iraq, and about this escalation, it doesn’t mean they won’t be blamed by the public if the result of an American withdrawal is lethal chaos in the region and $200 per barrel oil.” Matt has the obvious response, which is that if this happens it will be largely because clowns like Joe Klein focus the blame for the war’s failure on everybody but the people who conceived, executed, and supported it. The other thing to add is that it’s not the Iraq War’s contemporary opponents, but Joe Klein, who insists on wedging everything into the framework of Vietnam. Yes, opposition to the Vietnam War was in many respects even more unpopular than the war itself–but the situations aren’t remotely comparable. There are no urban or campus riots, for example. There’s no reason to think that the same thing will happen. (And as Ana Marie Cox points out, it’s still not clear what Klein is arguing. Does this mean that liberals shouldn’t oppose the war? That only Joe Klein can? That the Weather Undergound shouldn’t provide the keynote speaker for the 2008 Democratic convention? God, this is an asinine argument.)