Kirkpatrick Again

Brian Beutler notes the late former UN Ambassador's seemingly long record of public support for the war she more recently claims to have opposed. I actually find her account fairly plausible. If you look at her statements, she's clearly trying to be helpful to the pro-war cause, but isn't actually saying "and therefore, we should invade Iraq."

In short, it's just another tale of corruption and weakness in the foreign policy establishment. Like a lot of Democratic Party-affiliated people, Kirkpatrick may well have thought invading Iraq seemed like a bad idea but decided it made more sense to prove that she can be a good vassals to her political and financial patrons. Since the party line Kirkpatrick was supposed to toe was a pro-war one, she toed it. Democrats in her position tended to simply say nothing.