One other notable thing about Packer's taxonomy of war arguments (which, I should have said more clearly, detailed the arguments he saw among liberal hawks) is that nowhere on the list does he mention Iraq's threat to us, or connection to 9/11. These arguments, though central to the case for war, were utterly derided by liberal hawks, who chalked their (obviously mendacious) existence up to basic fear-mongering needed to placate the rubes. No liberals I know of bought the war based on Bush's stated case -- they bought it based on Ken Pollack's or Tom Friedman's cases. But, at the end of the day, it was still George W. Bush's war. The efforts of the liberal hawks to support their own versions of the conflict were sheer exercises in ego, brought on by folks whose usefuness in the moment led them to believe they would wield far more influence than they actually possessed..
