Fifth, while this is only a satellite effect of our involvement in Iraq, it actually served as a net-plus politically for George W. Bush in his re-election effort against John Kerry — a net-plus without which Bush probably would not have won. This is from memory, but I think the “for-or-against” Iraq poll questions in that campaign were about a net wash, but the “who do you trust to be strong in defending American interests” question still favored Bush significantly enough to have made the difference — along with high turnout in anti–gay-marriage initiatives — between winning and losing. And if anybody thinks that subsequent Bush performance made that a pyrrhic victory, I have two names for them: Roberts and (especially) Alito. As frustrating as the Supreme Court is, imagine how badly off the country would be if Justices Rehnquist and O’Connor had been replaced by justices Laurence Tribe and Hillary Rodham Clinton. And imagine how much more badly bungled so much other domestic policy would have been under Kerry. Ugh.So, hundreds of thousands dead and Iraq and our nation's foreign policy credibility in smoldering ruins, but at least Bush got reelected and a couple of wingnuts on the Court. Purple fingers all around, not all of them caused by gangrene.
UPDATE. In comments, Jay B shorters this one "I like to think your son died so that Sam Alito can deny you healthcare." (All the comments are good, definitionally.)
Plus I'd like to correct "Iraq and our nation's foreign policy credibility in smoldering ruins"; Iraq's may still be smoldering, but the ruins of our credibility are not; they're cool, have kudzu growing over them, and show little evidence of their former exalted state, besides mass.
