"DON'T WORRY, GOVERNOR STEVENSON, THE THINKING PEOPLE OF THE COUNTRY ARE WITH YOU!" "YES, BUT I NEED A MAJORITY." The war is in its endgame, and already the war advocates are taking the opportunity to slander their opposition: You're all traitors, you love Saddam, no one likes you...

In case some of you youngsters who haven't been through this before are feeling a great sense of injustice right about now, let me tell you straight: you have every reason to feel that way. Nothing succeeds like success, and everyone wants to be on the winning team, even if they missed the first three quarters. Also, when faced with the choice between, on the one hand, believing that their Government would spend billions of dollars and dozens of American lives on a selfless mission of mercy, and, on the other hand, believing that their Government cynically overinflated a threat through lies and jingoism in order to take over a large, oil-rich country, the American people are going to make the choice that's easiest on themselves. I mean, when they have to travel a hundred yards to pick up a bottle of milk, they usually take a car -- how drawn to challenge do you think they are?

So, for a while, it'll be a little lonely for thinking people. As I spent more than a year demonstrating, nonsense is in fashion right now. You just won't be cool for some time.

Whether you can stick it depends on how devoted you are to being right. If you doubt your devotion, you might as well pick up your pennant and head off to the night rally right now. If your understanding of what it means to be an American doesn't absolutely force you to insist that two and two make four, then the historical observation that these things tend to run in cycles, and that our day will come, will not hold you to it. There's only one reason to choose what's right over what's wrong, and that's because it's right.