Last Night, Stephen Colbert NAILED Pro-War Liberals to the Toilet

[NashVegas]

Last night's interview with George Packer ("The Assassin's Gate")


http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=58885

Packer was a pro-war liberal. Colbert demonstrates why Republicans will continue to win on the war issue, or at least why they will win against pro-war liberals.

Here, I'll make it easy for you:

Packer explained he was for the war because he honestly thought it would be a good thing to remove Saddam, even though he was dubious about the evidence against him. When he saw how the war was going, he changed his mind.

Colbert:

"Here's why I don't like your theory. If your theory of why we should have gone to war was right, then we took American soldiers and we played craps with their lives — on a bet we thought we would win.

"But I think it's better to say that we had to go and this is a noble job, to keep Americans away from nuclear weapons that Saddam Hussein had, that's a war that I can still get behind."


Pro-war liberals were, quite simply, idiots to think their voting base would go along with a war based on a hopeful theory. Pro-war Republicans didn't have the conscience-crisis of promoting Condi's propaganda, they could cheerfully go along with it and gather support for the war among their base.


(edited to add Packer's change of heart)

[orwell]

1. In the End...

...I don't think pro or anti war is a liberal or conservative issue. It is more deeply rooted in your spiritual or philisophical world view. There are many paleo-conservatives who are fairly anti-war. definitely anti-interventionism.

[NashVegas]

7. It's Not That Issue So Much

As that among a certain group of liberals who were smart enough to understand the reasons given for going to war were crap, but also saw some *possible* benefits, who thought they were taking a smart position. It wasn't smart at all.

[orwell]

9. I stood on a street corner...

...in a rural town with a group of about 15 pro peace activists holding candles while shock and awe was launched. Everyone who passed us shouted at us, flipped us off, and generally told us to screw off. I lost some "friends" that night as I went into a singing practice and unloaded about the evil that was about to be unleashed in the name of "fightin' terra."

I oppose war, period. I couldn't even understand how those that are pro war bought the ridiculous parade of obvious lies that led up to it. This whole thing was a shitstorm catastrophe from the beginning.

But then I knew some conservatives who thought the same way.

What really gripes me is that now, after it is clear that the pro war crowd were knowingly deceived into a tragic mistake, they still try to dredge up these tired bromides about how it was all worth it. It has taught me a valuable lesson about human nature. People rarely change their mind, even when demonstrably wrong, because doing so requires that they are willing to question the very way they see themselves and the world around them, an extremely difficult proposition.

BTW, this was almost the same thing that happened to me about a decade earlier when Gulf War I was launched. At 50 years old, I am as obstinate in my worldview as many I scorn.

[nashville_brook]

2. it was priceless!

afraid to seem unpatriotic... bascially.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. LOL. So did this dude say he was STILL in favor of it, or not? Dude's book

has been pimped rather heavily, by, er, certain persons on DU.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. He said he was in favor of it at the time, but is opposed to it now

due to how badly it's been screwed up. He seemed to me to be essentially saying that the idea of it was good, but the execution of it was so bad as to outweigh the good that could have come of it. In other words, he's not opposed in principle to unilateral aggression, just upset over how badly the Bushies screwed it up.

There seems to have been an entire class of ostensible liberals who knew that Bush was lying about WMDs but bought in to the whole neocon notion that we could, and should, go in and remake this society and transform it into a democracy.

I haven't seen the DU pimpers of the book yet.

[TahitiNut]

4. "a good thing to remove Saddam" = Regime Change -- An ILLEGAL Casus Belli

It is clearly and unarguably ILLEGAL to go to war for the purposes of regime change. It's a crime against peace. Due to the FACT that we have signed international treaties (including the UN Charter) agreeing to this international law, that makes its violation unconstitutional. Thus, anyone promulgating this is a TRAITOR - acting to overturn the Constitution.

[NashVegas]

6. Yeah, Well, We Had a Whole Lot of Those, Didn't We?

You may remember the writings of Josh Marshall at TPM in the run up to the war. He was all for it until we got to within two or three days of the invasion and suddenly it dawned on him that we were about to make a colossal screw-up (his "bowstring effect" posts).

[TahitiNut]

11. Yep. In my opinion, that's why the Bushes and Cheneys and Lays ...

... of this country are so "successful." Far too many of us have our heads up our butts so far we can't distinguish between a 'strategy' and an 'atrocity.' We make noises about "not another Vietnam" and haven't the foggiest what that means. It's also probably why we imprison our own citizens at a higher rate than any major nation on earth - when we're not putting them to death.

Consider this: Saddam Hussein's reasons for invading Kuwait were an order of magnitude better than the US's reasons for invading Iraq. How's that for a kick in the ass?

[NashVegas]

12. I Know I Know!

If the people of Texas, alone, had been fully informed about the slant drilling, we may never have gone in there.

[blogslut]

8. That's when I cried

"Here's why I don't like your theory. If your theory of why we should have gone to war was right, then we took American soldiers and we played craps with their lives — on a bet we thought we would win.

"But I think it's better to say that we had to go and this is a noble job, to keep Americans away from nuclear weapons that Saddam Hussein had, that's a war that I can still get behind."

I know it's a comedy show but that statement by Colbert was chilling.

[OnyxCollie]

10. According to interventionist liberalism,

taking out Saddam would have been a noble thing.

Liberals believe people are generally good. People want to work to better their lives, and by trying to achieve their own perfection, bring the state closer to perfection. Not all people are good, and authoritative governments, ie. dictatorships, representing the beliefs of one individual and likely to only benefit that individual, are unacceptable. Democracies are considered to be the form of government that best represents the beliefs of the people, and as such, are the preferred governments to achieve harmonious coexistence between states. Non-interventionist liberals believe time will sort out any differences between states. Interventionist liberals believe actions must take place to move things along. So, the invasion of a state, the removal of a hostile government, and the creation of a democracy is a just, noble event.

Of course, bullshit begets more bullshit:

Bushco's lies about WMD's; the realists' delusional cost/benefit analysis of invading and occupying a pressure cooker like Iraq; the destabilization of the Middle East; the setting of a precedent for an attack against America in self-defense; and the dismissal of the real threat against America, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. These are but a few of the reasons why Bush's foreign policy is an abomination.


Just think, if they could have gotten the WMD's in there, if no one would have questioned the Niger forgeries, if Joe Wilson would have cooperated, if those damn Iraqis would have been happy to have been bombed and have a puppet regime set up to represent Bushco's interests, Bush could have been a hero.

Nope. Once a failure, always a failure.

[applegrove]

13. So - what are you saying. Neocons are better cause their wars are

phony and they don't have to feel anything?