it's hard to say which is worse

On the one hand, you have all the people who got Iraq so spectacularly, horribly wrong the first time, by whatever combination of incompetence and mendacity, being trotted out again and asked for their "insights" into how to rectify the entirely predictable disaster that they helped to cause.  Because there are no consequences for being this utterly wrong about something this important. No matter how many lives are lost due to your infantile wishful thinking and your insecure bloodthirsty faux-machismo, you will never be treated as anything less than a sage by the television networks and op-ed page editors.

I mean, the utter shamelessness of a piece like this:

The Collapsing Obama Doctrine

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many

By

Dick Cheney And

Liz Cheney

 

 would have been unthinkable had not Oliver fucking North been trotted out last week to complain about the President's methods of freeing a US hostage.

 

 

 

In a sane world, it would be unimaginable that someone like Cheney would show his face in public, let alone be invited onto the pages of a major newspaper to try and deflect blame for the gruesome debacle he had a major part in causing. Former officials like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell, and media figures like Bill Kristol, Thomas Friedman and Judith Miller should have had their homes burnt to the ground and been chased from town to town by jeering mobs, spitting and cursing at them.

 

But no, there are no consequences at all for being this wrong.

 

But what may be even worse is that the one thing for which one can be punished is having been right. With all the talk shows booking John McCain and the chorus of neo-cons pushing for yet more blood to be shed in Iraq,  has anyone booked Barbara Lee? How about  Janeane Garofalo? Michael Moore? Dennis Kucinich? Have we heard from anyone who opposed the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, now that the situation has devolved into exactly the sectarian bloodbath they predicted it would? 

Meet the Press had Mitt Romney, of all people, to discuss how if he was president everything would be better because we would never ever leave Iraq until they finally just admit how much they love us or something.  And then PAUL FUCKING WOLFOWITZ! Who STILL gets everything wrong!

PAUL WOLFOWITZ:

Look, you used the word sectarian, so did Richard Engel. This is more than just those obscure, Shia/Sunni conflict. This is Al Qaeda. And Al Qaeda is not on the road to defeat, Al Qaeda is on the march. Not just in Iraq, in Syria, and Libya.

NO, this is NOT Al Qaeda. These are the guys whom Al Qaeda found to be too extreme. They actually don't get along all that well with Al Qaeda.  But then again, neither did Saddam Hussein and you didn't let that fact interfere with a good narrative.

 

Face the Nation had Lindsey Graham who never saw a Muslim country he didn't want to invade to prove how butch he is. 

But no anti-war voices as far as I can tell.(I couldn't find the guest list for ABC's This Week, and I don't need to check anything on FOX)

So those who were wrong keep getting invited back on the air. Those who were right continue to be shunned. And it's hard to say which bodes worse for the future.