Behind the Curve

This Week with George Stephanopolous this morning featured an interesting exchange on political punditry. Enter this as a follow-up to Paul's look at the forces that propel a Victor Davis Hanson or Fred Kagan to national prominence and cushy sinecures.

On today's Roundtable, Fareed Zakaria objected strenously to Katrina Vanden Heuvel's contention that the US public has always been way out ahead of policymakers on the Iraq question. Zakaria bristled at the very idea that his brilliant insights and highly remunerated expertise were merely "behind the curve" set by mass opinion.

But the sad thing is, of course, that public opinion always has been more skeptical of the Iraq adventure than our political leaders, elite journalists, op-ed writers, and pundits on shows like This Week with George Stephapolous.

On the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, polls showed that nearly 1 out of 3 Americans opposed the invasion (30%). And, of course, the percentage opposing the war would have been higher had so many Americans not thought the attack on Iraq had something to do with 9/11. And it would have been higher still had they been exposed to a greater diversity of respectable elite views on the issue.

But even today, years after the debacle has exploded for everyone to see, the Sunday shows rarely represent that 30% of America who thought invading Iraq was a bad idea from the beginning. Has there ever been a Sunday program focused on Iraq on which 30% of the guests and commentators were war opponents from the start? In venues where politics are discussed before a national audience, the shut-out of these views was and remains nearly as complete as it was before the war started.

The blame for the Iraq War extends far beyond the Bush administration. It represents a complete failure of American political elites, both inside and outside government. Vanden Heuvel didn't press the point nearly far enough today, but Zakaria knows where she was driving. And he, along with the whole political establishment that makes him rich and famous, is vulnernable to it.