Via Jackson Williams at the Huffpo, a look back at what Bill Kristol and the gang at the Weekly Standard found oh so amusing four years ago.
Here in our office there’s this giant archive of newsclips, transcripts, and Internet postings we collected in the months preceding the war, wherein a world community of jackasses confidently predicted that the events lately unfolding on our television screens could not and would not ever take place. And you can imagine the temptation, we’re sure: A lesser SCRAPBOOK would throw open the file boxes and run through the streets with treasures like these, laughing hysterically.
“This invasion of Iraq, if it goes off, will join the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Desert One, Beirut, and Somalia in the history of military catastrophe. What will set it apart, distinguishing it for all time, is the immense–and transparent–political stupidity.”
–Chris Matthews, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2002
* * *
“Iraqis hate the United States government even more than they hate Saddam, and they are even more distrustful of America’s intentions than Saddam’s. . . . [I]f President Bush thinks our invasion and occupation will go smoothly because Iraqis will welcome us, then [he] is deluding himself.”
–New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof, October 4, 2002
* * *
“If history is a guide, you cannot subdue a large and hostile city except by destroying it completely. Short of massacre, we will not inherit a pacified Iraq. . . . To support ‘the groundwork’ for this effort is to support a holocaust, quite soon, against Iraqi civilians and also against the troops on both sides. That is what victory means.”
–James K. Galbraith on the American Prospect website, April 1, 2003
* * *
“Cheney [down arrow] Tells ‘Meet the Press’ just before war, ‘We will be greeted as liberators.’ An arrogant blunder for the ages.”
–Newsweek, April 7, 2003 edition
* * *
“Is Wolfowitz really so ignorant of history as to believe the Iraqis would welcome us as ‘their hoped-for liberators’?”
–Eric Alterman in the April 21, 2003, issue of the Nation
There’s more. And here’s a related cartoon from a few weeks back.