He indentified a market niche, Jon. There was a need for pro-war, neoliberal intellectuals and he acted courageously. That's bold resolve, if you ask me. Audacious and bodacious, too. There's nothing like lecturing almost everyone who reads the mags that publish his articles on their need to get right with hegemony. You may not see his logic there, or in his support for immoral wars, but it exists. Just as surely as intelligent design explains evolution.

Reminds me of interviews Packer has done with Al Franken on Air America, and points to the serious failings of Franken, Packer, and others who accept an infallible American nobility, while declaring that we must keep the troops in Iraq so that we do not ``cut and run.''

That was risible.

I'd almost rather they all just kept their head stuck in their ass than look around at the hellhole they created and say "Well, see, we were right, shit happened, and yeah, we have managed to make hell on earth but it was still the right decision unlike you hippy, slacker filth who loved Saddam and Islamofascism.".

Have you seen the Guardian's list of the world's top intellectuals? It is enough to give me a headache, as most of them are on a par with this guy. (Chomsky, however, is on there. They would have had trouble leaving him off, I suppose.) Perhaps it is pollution, but I think intellectuals seem to be getting stupider and stupider (yes I know that is not a word).

Though putting forth "the United Nations against democratic idealism" as one of the dichotomies of the pre-Iraq war period is certainly priceless, I'd say the best part of Packard's mental chunkbloviation was this:

In the winter of 2003, what you thought about the war mattered less to me than how you thought about it. [...] In those tense months, the mark of second-rate minds was absolute certainty one way or the other.

Note the logic here:

1) In the winter of 2003, I, George Packer, was uncertain about the Iraq war.

2) It must be obvious even to the multitude of swine examining my glimmering pearls that I, George Packer, have a first-rate mind.

3) Therefore, anyone who was certain about the Iraq war in the winter of 2003 clearly has nothing more than a second-rate mind.

It'd be easy to have a laugh at the expense of our patient instructor George here. Ha ha ha, that George, what a maroon. Will he and those like him never learn?

Unfortunately, though, this same form of reasoning is endemic to much of the liberal left. Just one example: "in the fall of 2004, I saw no other choice than to swallow my principles and vote for John Kerry; I'm a reasonable person; therefore, only unreasonable people were unwilling to accept the absolute necessity to vote for John Kerry in 2004." Yes, that's familiar territory, but truly, it's just one of many examples I could have chosen. In fact, defining your own position as the rational, reasonable one seems to me to be practically the favorite pastime of many liberals.

Well, at least that last commenter had enough sense to go anonymous.

...unreasonable bastard.

You're the unreasonable one, Sully, you evildoer. I know you're in league with both Packer and the Rotarians!

Ha!

Feel free to prove me wrong . . . if you can.

My anonymity up there was actually an unintended result of filling out the comment form twice, but the identifying info only once (*sigh*). I'm happy to take both the credit and the blame.

You really have a talent for morally denouncing war, I don't know how to put it but it's exactly what I want to hear. Most people don't write about it at all or sound bleeding-hearted.

Vee vill deal vith you, Harry. In zese terrible accents, too.

I checked that list of 100 intellectuals, and I'm not on it. I'm bummed. And it is too a word.