In retrospect, it is rather shocking, the degree to which anti-war Iowans have gotten beyond the war. Dean received very little credit last night for his outspoken take on the invasion; Iowans who opposed it and felt strongly about it were quite willing to vote for candidates whose positions evolved over time. Why? Because the occupation is going swimmingly now? Surely not. The reason is that the war is history. To be more precise: the debate over the rightness or wrongness of our going in is history. Iraq, now, is a mess with some silver linings, from which nobody benefits.
Why do I sense that a lot of Independents are going to have a similar reaction when the Bush machine keeps trying to remind them of the glories of the invasion?