Staying in Iraq Forever, Continued

I was watching old episodes of 'Real Time w/ Bill Maher' on YouTube (I was bored), when I came across an episode from October 2004, one month away from the presidential elections.



In this segment, the panel was debating the Iraq war, and the clip is noteworthy for how little the debate over the war has changed-- despite the constantly evolving facts and insights we've gained since-- in four long years. On the panel was Stephen Moore, of countless conservative think-tanks and publications. At about the 4-minute mark, after Maher lambasts the "Enron accounting tricks" used to continue the war, Moore says-

Moore: "Well, we could be out of Iraq within six months to a year..."

Maher: "And how would that happen, Steve?"

Moore: "We'll have an elected government put in. As Bush said, we're training soldiers over there to keep the peace, it could easily happen."

Note that all the things that Moore said were necessary to allow us to "easily" exit Iraq soon after President Bush's reelection have occurred... and yet four years of kicking the can down the road later, and we're still in the same place.

But don't worry, just another six months from now and they'll have it all figured it out. It's amazing how these constant can-kickings stack up until we look back, and we're in year six of the war, with still no end in sight. The intellectual dishonesty of these people is amazing. As I noted on Tuesday, they all know that the war is lost, but pride prohibits them from finding a way to deal with that.

[PS- Also note the silly Dixie Chicks joke Moore makes toward the end. Ahh, good ol' 2004.]