As Yglesias says, the lack of any mention of Iraq in the Clinton campaign post-mortem is a bit odd. More than that, I think the general dismissive tone of the campaign regarding Obama simply "giving speeches" against the war suggests a tremendous misreading of the Democratic primary population. One power politicians have is to persuade, and it would have been nice if more of them had been giving speeches opposing the Iraq war back in the day instead of voting to give the president the authority to go destroy a country.
2002-03 was a very bad time for this country. It was a nation gone mad, and politicians directed that madness towards Iraq. For the most part our elites completely failed us. Dismissing those who in some small ways opposed this war while you, in a position of power, enabled it to happen is a slap in the face to a group of people who have been slapped quite a bit lately.
The dirty fucking hippies were, you might remember, the reason Dems didn't take Congress in 2002 or 2006, were why John Kerry lost the presidency, why Democrats were doomed to be the minority party for generations, etc... We're a wee bit tired of being mocked for the failures of people who really screwed the pooch.
