We're no longer debating whether the Iraq War was right, just who supported it

Restaurant owner Neal Rowland holds a plate of his Freedom Fries February 20, 2003, in Beaufort, North Carolina. Rowland changed the name of the french fries he serves to Freedom Fries at his Cubbies resturant to show his disgust with the French government's delay tactics regarding Iraq.

Among so many other things, this election has demonstrated that liberals have brought about one long overdue sea change in public opinion: Finally, we have official confirmation that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has been so completely discredited that it’s no longer even a debatable point that the war was a bad idea in the first place.

And we know this, well and truly, because of the outright lies Donald Trump has proffered in his attempts to disavow his past comments in support of the Iraq War—and because of the spine-popping contortions his water carriers at Fox News are engaged in to give him cover.

For those of us with clear memories of the darkest of the Bush years, it’s surreal to see the very same voices that shouted down opponents of the war and called us traitors now try to rewrite history in favor of those who spoke out against this terribly misbegotten invasion. It’s a remarkable turnaround from a toxic political discourse that once gave us everything from the absurd Freedom Fries phenomenon to the chilling Dixie Chicks boycotts to the president’s own press secretary warning that Americans had better “watch what they say.”

Everyone who took a stand against the invasion when it was politically challenging if not downright scary to do so—from Natalie Maines to Russ Feingold, from Howard Dean to the Raging Grannies—should allow themselves this moment. It’s by no means a moment of triumph, but one of recognition. It’s a terrible tragedy that we had to wage a predictably horrifying war to reach this understanding, but your opposition to it has been completely, and totally, vindicated. May this be a lesson to the future.