LIBERAL NAVEL-GAZING WITH JOSH MARSHALL
Josh Marshall comments on a post by Kevin Drum commenting on a post by David Adesnik on public support for the war and comes up with this gem:
“Here’s what I mean — it comes down to an issue of cognitive dissonance.
The dead-even political polarization of America remains the defining fact of our politics. Close to 50% of Americans were dead set on voting for President Bush almost no matter what. Or they were dead set on voting against John Kerry. For our purposes, it’s the same difference.
I think that many Bush supporters simply couldn’t take stock of the full measure of the screw-up in Iraq during the election because doing so would have conflicted their support for President Bush. Iraq and the war on terror so defined this election that support for the war and the president who led us into it simply couldn’t be pried apart. “
As a Bush supporter who watched the administration screw up the occupation of Iraq with great dismay, I feel qualified to offer a lesson in Occam’s Razor to Mr. Marshall.
John Kerry did not ” pry apart” the pro-war voting bloc because Kerry did not offer anything to hawkish voters that would indicate that a Kerry administration would be a decisive improvement over the performance of George W. Bush. Or even a marginal improvement. We feared it would be even worse. Not surprising when at least a fair portion of Mr. Kerry’s base were to the Left of Howard Dean on the war who was himself, well to the Left of Senator Kerry.
Cognitive dissonance apparently knows no partisan creed.
