Dept. of Mickey Kaus is a Shmuck

Somehow I drifted over to Kausfiles, where he's flagging a National Enquirer story about John Edwards (somehow I don't think he pays attention to the half-dozen "Laura Bush moves out of the White House/Condi sleeping with George" stories they've run with recently). But this is even more ridiculous.

Mickey's Assignment Desk--Baracktrackers: 2,000 words on Dem policy bigshots who went with Obama when he looked like the coming thing--and are now desperately trying to somehow get back in Hillary's good graces. Foreign policy types are usually the most obvious about this sort of thing. ... Bonus: Point out that this is the type of political judgment the experts are supposed to get right. Making the mistake of betting on Obama--assuming he doesn't, you know, win--isn't all that different from making the mistake of betting on Chalabi.

Let me get this straight; making a choice for President is the same as BELIEVING THE LIES OF A KNOWN FABRICATOR that results in the biggest foreign policy disaster in American history. Also making a choice for President is somehow an exercise in "political judgment" and not conviction or shared interests on policy.

Also, should Obama win and the so-called "Baracktrackers" (evidence) be proven right, which is entirely possible considering, you know, not one American has cast a ballot yet, will somebody write a 2,000 word piece on how Mickey Kaus looked foolish again by jumping the gun? (Define foolish-ed. Not enough room on the Internet.)

...the subtext of this, of course, is Kaus trying to squirm out of his support for the Iraq war, so he relates that specific error in foreign policy judgment to potentially backing the wrong horse in a Presidential contest where there are about 1,000 additional factors at play. That's the height of condescension and self-regard.

UPDATE: FWIW, Kaus emails me to say:

I didn't support the Iraq War. I waffled and then Bob Wright convinced me it was better to hold off, though I came down against it on legal grounds, not because I thought it would be as big a mess as it's become.

I can't precisely find anything to corroborate this, although this makes it sound like he thought it would be "politically better for Bush to attack next winter," which is of course a ringing antiwar stance. But I'll take his word for it. Also, this is a devastating rebuttal to comparing FP experts who decided to back Obama to hawks who decided to believe the lies of Chalabi.