Joe Klein, in the midst of a raging blog feud with people at The American Prospect (which you can follow in real time here, here, here, here, here, and here), makes the point:

Liberals were "right" about Vietnam, but they have paid a price ever since because they were so obnoxious about their correctness.

I hesitate to even come near this brouhaha, but Klein's comment put me in mind of something--and that's the cavalier way in which some liberal opponents of the surge talk about withdrawal. They assert that anyone who's opposed to withdrawal is wishing for a pony; that the only conceivable reason for not withdrawing at this point is Bush's vanity. They even offer unsolicited career advice to David Petraeus--whom everyone thinks is the sharpest, most innovative thinker in the U.S. Army--to turn down the promotion to top military commander in Iraq (which I think actually comes pretty close to failing Klein's chesty challenge to liberals as to whether they can honestly say, "Even though I disagree with this escalation, I am hoping that General Petraeus succeeds in calming down Baghdad"). Maybe these people are right that withdrawal is necessary, but I don't think we should underestimate the consequences of it. By consequences, I don't mean anything as concrete as the prospects of a possible Al Qaeda sanctuary in Anbar provence or the abandonment of thousands of Iraqis to certain death. I'm talking about something more nebulous: what are the consequences of America losing a war--which is, after all, what withdrawal will mean? What will it do to our position in the world? What will it do to the national psyche? And what will it do to the people who fought in that war? (Yes, they'll be out of harm's way, but they'll also be left to conclude that all their efforts--and their sacrifices--were in vain.) Granted, these are all things Bush and supporters of the war should have thought more about before we invaded Iraq; but now that we're there--and we're all so sick of this war that many of us want to get out--we can't afford to ignore them again. The question about the surge to me is: are the consequences of defeat so dire that it's worth one final attempt to avoid it? I don't know the answer to that. I'll watch Bush's speech tomorrow night; I'll listen to what Kennedy and Biden and any other Democrats have to say in response; and I'll try to come to a conclusion. Maybe that's not a position of "moral seriousness." But I can't help but thinking that it was certainty--on the part of supporters of the war--that got us into this mess. And I'd hate for such certainty--on the part of opponents of the war (some of whom were actually certain in their support of the war not that long ago)--to get us into another one. --Jason Zengerle