Sincere

One problem Hillary Clinton has with refusing to say that her Iraq war vote was wrong is that it implies she thinks it was right. Since it clearly wasn’t that, she needs some other adjective. Today she chose one: she wasn’t wrong, she was... wait for it... sincere. “My vote was a sincere vote based on the facts and assurances that I had at the time.” As the patron saint of this blog said, once you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. Hillary, of course, does not have it made.

She also said “I have taken responsibility for my vote.” Isn’t that nice of her? Like if she hadn’t gone out of her way to take responsibility, whatever that means, she wouldn’t actually be responsible for her vote.

Speaking of responsibility, and indeed speaking of faking sincerity, Tony Blair has no doubt that his decision to join the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with any subsequent difficulties in that country: “The reason it is tough in Iraq and is difficult is because terrorists are making it difficult. ... We did not cause the terrorism, the terrorists caused the terrorism,” adding, “We will beat them when we realise it’s not our fault that they’re doing this. ... We will win if we don’t apologise for our values.” Yes, but do you take responsibility for your values?

Actually, I’m a little unclear on how not apologizing is relating to the capacity to win a military engagement.

Although the British will be pulling some troops out of Basra, they will be deploying Prince Harry to Iraq. And the Japanese are deploying Prince Pickles. A Defense Agency official explains: “Prince Pickles is our image character because he’s very endearing, which is what Japan’s military stands for.” Among other things.