I think one reason that real opposition doesn't get represented (unlike these clowns) is that the opposition to the war has always been broad and diverse, even when it didn't represent the majority. You have what's left of the pacifist movement--assorted Quakers, anti-nuke people, Mennonites, etc., which isn't all that organized, represents rather marginal groups, and doesn't really have a public face. Then there are the predictable "spokesmen" for "the Left": Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky who have useful things to say, buta lso are gasbags of sorts. Chomsky likes playing the provocative college professor, something that many of us (esp. PhD ex-academics like me) find tiresome and self-serving. Then you have people like Cindy Sheehan who has, unfortunately, morphed into a caricuture of herself. There are plenty of other critics like Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, but they are outsiders to the pundit class (which, if anything makes them more incisive observers), but they aren't necessarrily identified with the war to the same degree as the Kagans, et al. And, of course, there are a few right wing critics, although they tend to be folks on the margins, anyway.

Part of the problem is the willingness of the Post, in particular, to keep supporting the war regardless of what is on its news pages. And because the opposition to the war has long been diverse, the media is too lazy to move beyond the usual suspects, or they simply capitalize on the ones who seem like celebs (Sheehan in her heyday) or the most tiresome but quotable (like Vidal or Chomsky). This isn't that much different than what heppend during the Vietnam war. SDSers and people like Dr. Spock were more colorful and accessible than the increasingly diverse range of people who came to question the war.

Isn't Van Der Hei married to some mid-level wingnut--a Hill staffer or lobbyist? I'm sure that helps him get these silly tidbits.

The manipulation of public opinion about war is nothing new. During WWII, the War Department (as DoD was then known) and OSS hired some of the most prominent psychologists, sociologists, and political scientists for this purpose. People such asRobert K Merton (probablty the leading 20th centure sociologist), Kurt Lewin (a polymath psychologist with strong progressive political leanings) and Paul Lazarsfeld (a giant in survey work) were part of this effort. The focus group (Merton and to a lesser degree Lazarsfeld were its inventors) actually owes much of its origins to this effort and there were great refinements in survey research.

OTOH, Allen has been trading as "journalist" for years and his yipping and yapping for joy need the kind of attention that Kos, AmericaBlog & others have been lavishing on the hapless Bill O'Reilly. BTW, when I pick up Politico at the Metro, it takes me about 2 minutes to read it. It seems mostly useful as something to ball up as fill when packing valuables.

Brookings hasn't been truly liberal in ages. the rightward move behan back in the Reagan administration, when they brought in a Republican for their top spot.

The "scholar" business is funny because so many are on soft money and and places like AEI are position paper mills rather than real "think tanks". The "scholars" who get quoted tend to be these hacks or ex-politicos who have gotten positions designed to dress up university foreign affairs or area studies programs. Even the legit academics often have a little too much connection to specific interests via their funders.

The connection to the Cold war is important because the demise of the old Soviet Union (and Soviet Bloc) essentially took away the neocons reason to exist. They needed a new evil doing enemey that they could construct into a cartoon and now they have one. As in the Cold War, much of the liberal wing of the foreign policy community practices a "lite" version of the neo-con formula. The realist versus neo-con debate tends to mirror the hawks versus the moderates from the Cold War.

Powell has never been a "hero". Among military officers, he was known as a "politician", which is one of the lower forms of military life. He's had many times to distinguish himself and he hasn't, starting with Vietnam. Maybe in old age, he'll pull a McNamara and write a memoir. OTOH, McNamara's mea culpa included plenty of cluelessness ("if only there had been experts to tell us what would go wrong"). Whether as satire, thoughtful question, or naive question, the question here is not a very worthwhile one. As Trudeau said of G. H. W. Bush, Powell put his manhood in a blind trust long ago.

......but thank God for Miles Davis. And no comments from Merv's favorite "beard" Eva Gabor.