First, while it is nice to see people being less pessimistic (myself included), I think it's too early to start proclaiming any sort of victory for anyone yet. After all, not all the protests in Beirut are anti-Syrian. And the insurgency in Iraq seems as vicious as ever. Oh, and apparently our government hasn't lost it's taste for torture, either.
It does look like things are starting to move in the right direction. I just think it's silly for these journalists to proclaim victory the moment it seems that the administration wasn't 100% wrong.
There's also the lack of acknowledgement that to praise Bush and Wolfowitz is to also ignore the steps they took to reach this point. That is, they're being judged on the outcome, and not on the means to that outcome. I think both parts are relevant.
People seem willing to forgive the administration for their deceptions to get us into Iraq. Regardless of the outcome, I am still uneasy with their approach. If, in the end, it turns out they were right, that doesn't change the fact that they could have easily been wrong.
Don't get me wrong — I'm not arguing for inaction in the face of uncertainty. I'm saying that deceiving the population and bullying our allies was wrong. The way we vilified the french, in particular, is disheartening.|||111029393913488318|||Changing Views
Scooter|||This is along the lines of what you're referring to, but in a rather amusing, tangential sort of way.