Vanquishing The Hippies

The Kids won't remember but the primary reasons for the Iraq war for most of the "liberal" supporters was to prove the hippies fucking wrong once and for all and to remove them from public life forever.

MY ONLY IN-PERSON EXPOSURE TO CHAIT, a former assistant editor at the Prospect whose tenure didn’t overlap with mine, came at a debate the Prospect sponsored on the eve of the Iraq War. Speaking against our imminent invasion of Iraq were my colleague Bob Kuttner and William Galston, the leading intellectual champion of more centrist Democratic policies. Speaking for it were Chait and, probably since Chait’s performance was so memorable, I can’t call to mind his partner.

What was so memorable about Chait’s performance was his almost taunting proclamation that not only were there vast storehouses of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but that those of us who opposed the war would be humiliated and disgraced when those weapons were found, as they surely would be.

Chait was young so for him it was about getting revenge on the girl who wouldn't fuck him in college and impressing Marty Peretz, but there was this whole generation of guys who truly believed they were destined to run the country/world and would have been if not for the hippies and the gays and the blacks and feminism and abortion and McGovern. This was their moment!

As for what exactly made them "liberal," that is left as an exercise to the reader.