yes and no. it's very easy to say "I told you so" when you get something right, and very easy to change the subject when you get something wrong. what's very, very difficult--so difficult that it almost never happens--is publicly owning up to getting something wrong and trying to figure out why it happened so it's less likely to happen again.
Had Pollack not written something like this, people would have been legitimately skeptical of listening to him on anything else in the future. Now, however, he can legitimately take part in the debate again, IMHO (although of course what he says will have less authority than it did before). Compare that to the folks who said that the war itself would be a disaster, or the folks who said Saddam was behind 9/11. Until they do their own 'splaining, they don't deserve a hearing on anything else.
Frankly, the longer I've been in the business the less I care about the specific conclusions someone comes to on any given issue--since almost any important question can be argued both ways--and the more I care about the honesty and intellectual quality of their argumentation. This kind of piece gives Pollack high marks in that latter category--almost enough, perhaps even more than enough, to make up for his problems in the former...
tb@easyformetosay,ofcourse,sinceIgotsuckeredtoo.com |
