It's silly for Americans who argued against the war to spend time worrying about how they went wrong. Their self questioning is as self indulgent as their activism. Peace and freedom are ideals, not absolutes, but they have been as simplistically defended by liberals opposed to the war as they have been by the chicken hawks demanding it.

I always said that it was up to conservatives and realists, in this country, and to the broad based protests in other countries to stop the war, and they couldn't do it. I agree with everything Nathan Newman says. He's fighting the good fight, but there are still too many things too many Americans don't understand.
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I want to add something to my last post on sexuality, and in doing so, I've realized, I'll be able to tie together a few strands of argument that I've been engaged in.
I'd like to improve a little on Andrew Hacker's true story. "They're a charming couple. I've slept with both of them." would be better if it were written as a conversation:
"They're a charming couple"
"You should know [dear (?)], you've slept with both of them."
The tinge of arrogance on the speaker's part was a little off-putting, and this resolves it nicely. And my little fictional corrective is useful in other ways. It can be used to demonstrate the importance of art, as a description of intelligence as communication between equals- between the two fictional characters, between myself and Andew Hacker, and from Hacker to the original speaker- and as a primer on the philosophical and ethical significance of narrative and the dialectical or dialogical imagination. From there it's a small step to the defense of an open ended and flexible, and therefore just, rule of law, and against the Catholic formalism- flexible in it's hypocrisy if nothing else- of Antonon Scalia.
I guess I'm in high "Gore Vidal" mode today.