Getting It?

One of the Washington Post's high priests actually apologized for his own ignorance today:

In a column last week, I praised Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel for his prescient early warnings about the risks of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Some readers complained that for all his prescience, Hagel still voted to support the war, and that I was ignoring the many Democrats who were similarly wary of Iraq -- and who voted against war funding. These readers are right. Hagel took political risks expressing his concerns back in 2003, but so did Democrats who voted against the Iraq mission despite a vitriolic barrage from the administration.

Despite the fact that the Iraq Study Group report is largely meaningless, it has started to change the tone in this country (although the election probably had more to do with it) about the terrible mistake that has been made, and I think the punditocracy is starting, not all the way there but starting, to act a little more human in acknowledging their own errors of judgment. They don't have to; everybody knows where they went wrong and how much of a disservice they did to their country. But accountability matters, whether in journalism or politics.

That's why so many Bush Administration officials are apparently leaving government service rather than face accountability through Congressional oversight. They're less human than Beltway journalists. And that's daying something.