One of the recurring themes in the punditry is to declare that this is the
“last chance” for victory, peace, resolution, stability, etc. for Iraq.

Last week the WaPo ran this story about Iraq’s last chance.

A search of the WaPo’s online archives shows the Last Chance theme recurring
in the Spring of 2004.

The problem is, all these previous last chances were obviously not the Last
Chance.

So, why does the last chance theme survive?

Because it makes the situation sound and look dire and the ego of pundits.

The pundits can puff themselves up with words of little consequence and
propose solutions a the last chance juncture knowing that they will never be
held to account for their preferred policy positions.

And now, every development appears to be a last chance, just like the last
chances of two years ago–even when there will be multiple opportunities
with multiple variables for years to come.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 3:30 pm and is filed under MSM, WaPo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.