Right on This One

Isaac Chotiner writes:

I am a little late coming to this, but yesterday's David Brooks column, which discussed our ability (or inability) to (in Orwell's words) face unpleasant facts, included the following:

The ensuing mental flabbiness is most evident in politics. Many conservatives declare that Barack Obama is a Muslim because it feels so good to say so. Many liberals would never ask themselves why they were so wrong about the surge in Iraq while George Bush was so right. The question is too uncomfortable.

Is Brooks really comparing these two things? A huge percentage of Republicans think that Barack Obama is a Muslim. A huge percentage of Democrats (presumably) think they were right to oppose the surge. In other words, a lot of Republicans have a bizarre, often bigoted, and undeniably wrong opinion on a very simple topic. A lot of Democrats think that a hugely complex, somewhat successful, and still inconclusive policy was right to be opposed. (Let's ignore the question of whether it was smart to oppose the surge based on the evidence people had at the time.)

Chotiner's right, this is a bad analogy. A more apt comparison to 31 percent of Republicans believing that Obama is a Muslim, is 35 percent of Democrats believing Bush had knowledge about the 9/11 attacks in advance. Of course, there is nothing per se wrong with being a Muslim, whereas Democrats inexplicably believe Bush was complicit in the largest terrorist attack on American soil ever.