I wonder

Robert Kagan writes of Joe Lieberman's predicament today in the Washington Post:

The question of the day is, what makes Joe Lieberman different? What makes him now anathema to a Democratic Party and to liberal columnists who once supported both him and the war? Why is there now a chance he will lose the Democratic primary in Connecticut after so many years of faithfully serving that state and his own party?

Lieberman stands condemned today because he didn't recant. He didn't say he was wrong. He didn't turn on his former allies and condemn them. He didn't claim to be the victim of a hoax. He didn't try to pretend that he never supported the war in the first place. He didn't claim to be led into support for the war by a group of writers and intellectuals whom he can now denounce. He didn't go through a public show of agonizing and phony soul-baring and apologizing in the hopes of resuscitating his reputation, as have some noted "public intellectuals."

How any Democrats have managed to make such arguments ("I was misled!") without suffering the consequences of being viewed as incompetent and dangerously naive escapes me. I mean, if it was obvious that Sadaam never had WMD, why were you waiting until the fall of 2003 to speak up about it?! Wouldn't that have been a better argument to make say in the fall of 2002?

One by one, Democrats (most notably those in the Senate) in Congress have walked away from their votes on the Congressional Authorization to use Military Force in Iraq as if to say they had no part in it. Is it just me then that wonders how saying (assuming for the sake of argument that it went down that way) "I was gullible enough to be duped on Iraq," is good for your political career?

Kagan is sadly right: Apparently, amazingly, dispiritingly, it all works. At least in the short run, dishonesty pays. Dissembling pays. Forgetting your past writings and statements pays. Condemning those with whom you once agreed pays. Phony self-flagellation followed by self-righteous self-congratulation pays. The only thing that doesn't pay is honesty.