Right from the Start: Kevin Drum points out the obvious flaw to Sen. Obama's campaign strategy of highlighting his opposition to the 2002 Iraq Resolution:

Maybe it's unfair, but being "right" five years ago just doesn't seem to be a winning pitch. In a way, that doesn't surprise me. Most people react negatively to blowhards who are always reminding their friends about how smart they were on some previous occasion, and maybe that's how this sounds to a lot of people. Especially people who themselves might have supported the war back in 2002 and don't really appreciate being reminded about it.

I don't know. I'm just guessing here. But bragging about your good judgment might be a very different thing than bragging about a concrete achievement. On this score, Hillary Clinton's decision to cosponsor legislation preventing military operations against Iran without congressional approval seems pretty smart.

This really goes without saying. It's a frustrating thing for lefty bloggers to have been proven right about going to war in Iraq, only to have the same people whose counsel got us into the mess in the first place remain the "acceptable" voices about what to do now.

But in politics, it's entirely understandable why that should be so. The public backed the President's position the first time around. They have now come to realize they were sold a bill of goods, and they want someone to reverse the policy, but the fact that someone vociferously opposed said policy at the outset doesn't make them any more credible now. If you're a voter, a candidate who tells you that he, like you, supported going to war five years ago, but has now come to see the error of his ways, and that the policy needs to be changed, is simply going to have more influence than the smarty-pants who just wants to say "I told you so."