August 14, 2005

Biting the hand that fed you

Armstrong Williams got in a spot of trouble a while back for taking money from the Education Department. He was rightly raked over the coals for his conflict of interest but has managed to hang on to his syndicated column.

His latest is an about-face on the Iraq question. He thinks we should leave now, because there are suicide bombers there and our mission plan in 2003 was flawed. The evidence of WMD's was not strong enough. Oh, and it will strain our relationship with our allies. Yeah, woohoo, breaking news, must credit Armstrong Williams.

The column would be unremarkable were it written by a sophomore IR major for a college daily. But Williams is a conservative insider, a professional pundit, and a past supporter of the war. This could have been a devastating column. He ought to be familiar with the arguments for the war and be able to refute them convincingly. Instead he merely regurgitates liberal platitudes and fails to throw anything new out there or offer any new insight. Just became aware that there's a problem, eh? This is all it takes? Why did you support the war in the first place? Why change now?

The problem with his past transgression is that it renders his future decisions suspect as well. I wonder whether this is a ploy by Mr. Williams to rehabilitate his reputation and confirm his independence from the Bush Administration. If so, it is an extremely ill-considered gambit. He may get a brief rush of controversy, plus a few speaking engagements from the Angry Left, who'll put him on a rostrum between Cindy Sheehan and Joe Wilson, but in the long run he will alienate his remaining readers.

Not, mind you, because he dares to criticize the war effort, but rather because of his mercurial and poorly-reasoned switch in such a fundamental belief. You won't regain your conservative readership, Mr. Williams, by suddenly realizing that the Iraq War was wrong because France is mad at us now.