I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched some pundit/show host/other idiot on TV tell me something counterfactual about history that I actually witnessed myself (at some remove, of course), and now this little gem:
“President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a ‘free and peaceful Iraq’ that would serve as a ‘dramatic and inspiring example’ to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict.”–editorial, New York Times, Feb. 27, 2003
“One prominent neoconservative, Francis Fukuyama, asserts in a new book that the administration embraced democracy as a cornerstone of its policy only after the failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq. The issue was seized upon to justify the war in retrospect, and then expanded for other countries, he says.”–New York Times, March 17, 2006
By a show of hands: Is Fukuyama stupid, or does he just think absolutely everyone else in the world is?
(via)