Here’s an interesting exercise while the blog’s proprietors try to keep afloat during the academic silly season: come up with one time that you have been completely, embarrassingly wrong about something. Ironic evasion, e.g. “I was arong to give Bush the benefit of the doubt” won’t cut it unless you really did and you were next to insufferable about it.
For me the first thing that comes to mind was my reaction to the tragic shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in London. Call me gullible to take the original police report at face value, on top of which I was in a super-cranky mood that morning and feeling unusally sympathetic to authority so I forgot to even hedge my condemnation with the usual qualifications and disclaimers. Eesh. I don’t know how the opinion certification board let me go on blog commenting after that.
New rule for this thread only – commenters have to lead off with a suitably embarrassing goof of his or her own. Then you’re free to mock me, John, each other or chat about the day’s news. Should be entertaining.
Steve
I once got in an argument with Darrell where I thought I was wrong, but I was completely mistaken about that.
Bruce Moomaw
I backed the Iraq War initially, because I couldn’t conceive of Cheney and Rumsfeld being suicidally insane enough to concoct a fake danger of nuclear terrorism from one nation when doing so would increase the real danger of it from others. (Their sudden mutual lapse into insanity — which even people who knew them, such as Scowcroft, can’t explain — remains the central mystery of this administration. I tend to go with the Possessed By Evil Aliens theory myself, and during Rummy’s resignation speech I kept waiting for his eyeballs to suddenly roll up and green slime to come pouring out of his mouth.)
ThymeZone
Wrong? Ever, or just this year?
For this year, it was misjudging the size of the Mark Foley story and its effect.
Ever? Assuming that politics and blogs are the context, for me it would have to be believing that the moderate voice of George Bush in the 2000 campaign actually had anything to do with the real George Bush. The butthead that was appointed president by the Supreme Court is not the person that ran for the office. I didn’t really figure that out until mid-2000 when he invented the Iraq “threat” and set about trying to discredit and crush anyone who disagreed with his bizarre view of the situation.
I should have known better, after watching his well-meaning but not too smart dad declare Saddam Hussein to be the reincarnation of Hitler, fifteen years ago.
I just didn’t appreciate how much the Bush family loved Saudi cock and despised the average American.
demimondian
When I said “I don’t think is ADHD, and don’t think he’ll benefit from medication.” He was, he is, he does, and, regrettably, I think he always will.
guav
I was wrong when I wrote before the war that the administration was going to plant WMDs to ensure that their rationale would hold up. Apparently they were even too incompetent to cover their own asses.
Tulkinghorn
I thought John Anderson would forge a new political party that would lead this country to greatness through Republican discipline and Democratic compassion. I proudly wore the “John Anderson for President” t-shirt that I had bought at the James Taylor benefit concert. I thought it did not get much cooler than James Taylor… that is even more embarrassing than the John Anderson part.
As a mitigating factor I cite the fact that I was only 14.
Tulkinghorn
Demi – been there and thought exactly that too. Was completely wrong.
Mike S
I believed Clinton when he said “I did not have sex with that woman.” I just didn’t think he would lie so boldly about it, especially since it was a non-issue.
It still pisses me off that he lied to my face, so to speak.
TenguPhule
I thought North Korea’s nuclear test would distract from the Foley scandal and posted on Dkos, boy was my face red when I was posting my apology the next day.
Red, but delighted.
sidereal
Nice to see that (Mike S excepted) everyone is ignoring the strictures and is using the thread as an opportunity to bring out the hobby horses rather than to show actual conciliation.
Me, I was an insufferable anarcho-capitalist who could say things like:
‘A perfect market would bring universal prosperity if people would just implement it correctly’
and:
‘I’m tired of socialists saying “socialism would bring universal prosperity if people would just implement it correctly”. The prove is in the pudding’
in the same conversation and not realize what a dink I was being.
Kimmitt
I believed that the invasion of Iraq would entail house-to-house fighting which would cause hundreds of thousands of civilian dead, followed by a cholera epidemic due to the destruction of the sanitation system.
Obviously, I was wrong about that.
TenguPhule
Not really. We got hundreds of thousands dead and a medical disaster of unmitigated proportions in Iraq.
ThymeZone
And what were you wearing?
pie
I was wrong to think that Bush would launch an air raid on Iran just to boost his party in the election year. Apparently, either even he’s not that crazy, or someone sane managed to stay his hand somehow.
But that’s okay, because I’m a pie. I have an IQ unmeasurable by any form of testing known to humanity, and no soul or spirit whatsoever unless one puts stock in the beliefs of the animists and neo-Pagans. On the other hand, I am delicious.
Hooray! I like me!
ThymeZone
Hey, in your crust there … is that trans fat??
Salty Party Snax
Rush Limbaugh referred to the IRG as the “Iraq Surrender Group” today. And the cover of today’s New York Post read “Surrender Monkeys!’ Had Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton in chimp costumes.
The hard right is rallying around Georgie Bush.
ThymeZone
Good, they deserve each other. Bunch of crazy lying fucks.
CaseyL
I was wrong about Dino diLaurenti’s “Dune.”
I was wrong in precisely the mortifying, no-irony, no-evasion way Tim means:
1. I thought the movie would be good because the source material was so rich; and because I had great respect for Jose Ferrer, Siobhan McKenna, and Francesca Annis. Nothing terribly wrong there, but –
2. I knew, I already knew DiLaurentis was a hack who destroyed everything he touched… yet I thought he’d have learned something by the time he helmed “Dune.” So, I was wrong to ignore my own better judgment.
3. I persuaded about a dozen of my friends to attend the special premiere screening that was a benefit for a local theater company (Ferrer was its Artistic Director at the time). That meant we all had to buy $25 tickets, and $25 was a significant amount of money for a movie in the mid-80s. So I was wrong in public, to my friends, and made them spend a lot of money, too!
4. The premiere was shown at a multiplex. All but 3 of my friends wound up sneaking out of the theater to go down the hall and see “Terminator” instead. I wasn’t one of them. Some depraved sense of responsibility glued me to my seat. That’s another kind of wrong, I guess.
5. The movie wasn’t even bad enough to be fun, inadvertent camp. It did have its moments – like Sting in his silver codpiece, Brad Douriff’s whacky take on the Evil Mentat, and the Guild Navigators, who had talking vulvas for mouths (an image I will take with me to my grave) – but not enough. Not nearly enough.
6. I could take comfort in one thing. Ferrer, poor fellow, was a Special Guest at the Special Premiere. As awful as it was to watch the hideosity on screen, at least I wasn’t the one who died a little death at every giggle, guffaw, and Oh-My-God-this-sucks that rippled through the audience.
So, so wrong.
Pooh
I appear to have been very wrong about Vince Young.
Also, this:
Me too
Jack Roy
When I first heard initial rumors about the “macaca” incident in Virginia (accompanied by some liberal bloggers calling it “the end of the Allen presidential bid” or words to that effect), I thought it was a complete non-event. I believe I even have personal emails archived along the lines of “Yawn. Next!”
I think that’s the biggest I can think of at the moment. Well, other than being utterly convinced as of the All-Star Break that nothing could keep the Red Sox from meeting the Mets in the World Series. (Yikes. I didn’t want to bring that memory back up. Okay, 70 days til pitchers and catchers.)
zzyzx
I thought that Bush vs Gore was an election between the center left and the center right and it barely mattered who won. I wrote in a friend for president, told her that night, and said, “Hey if Bush wins and he wins by only our state and our state was decided by under 1000 votes, I’ll feel guilty.” I almost made an incredibly accurate prediction (the only thing I was wrong about was the state; I live in WA) under the guise of saying what would be completely impossible to happen.
Dave
I was wrong to think that Bush would be a better President than Gore. Even though he wasn’t too bright, “surrounds himself with good people” seemed like a good plan…what a load of crap.
zzyzx
Oh and obviously, I was completely wrong about what kind of president Bush was. The last 7 years turned me from being a Democratic leaning moderate to being fully in the arms of the party.
Dave
zzyzx – my experience is almost exactly the same except I started out conservative leaning moderate.
Brian
Joining the self-flagellation…
I was wrong in thinking the Duke lacrosse rape case prosecuters had to have something to carry on the case.
I originally predicted Americans would be so mad after 9/11 when invading Afghanistan we’d have revenge atrocities caught on camera.
There’s more, but those two were the ones I recall as being so far off base they’re worthy of talk radio.
Jess
Well, you’re still kinda wrong about it–it was directed by David Lynch, was it not? Or was diLaurenti involved in some other aspect of it? (I rather enjoyed it both because of and despite its absurdity.)
I overestimated the reaction against Bush in 2004, and was convinced we would successfully rise up and establish a new regime, although I was really not happy with Kerry. But then I underestimated the determination of the people who were defeated in 2004 to keep fighting, and I was (am still) amazed at the results of last month’s election. I’ve never been good at keeping track of all the details of current events, but I can’t think of any big things I’ve been dramatically wrong about. I do regularly give the wrong people the benefit of the doubt and get screwed over too often. That’s my biggest embarassment.
demimondian
I made a bet with a friend that “Nixon would never resign; they’d have to catch him going after people on tape for that to happen.”
The rest, as they say, is history.
Elvis Elvisberg
I was wrong about the Iraq war. I thought that VP Cheney had a good reason to say that “I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong” and that we were certain to find WMD there; and that Rumsfeld based his assertion that there was “bulletproof” evidence of collaboration between Saddam and al Qaeda on something, well, bulletproof.
Now I realize that on the basis of information publicly available at the time, the WMD argument and the al Qaeda argument were dubious, to say nothing of other administration assertions like concerns over bioweapons attacks by Iraqi airplanes.
Yeah, we were deliberately deceived, but I’m still responsible for allowing my nationalism to blind me to inconvenient facts.
I was wrong to have believed that the country learned from Vietnam that we should only go to war for clear reasons, that we must fight honorably, that warfare is too important to be conceived and prosecuted for domestic political gain, and that we can’t put our troops in an unwinnable, drawn-out war.
Actually, we learned that the government lies.
Obviously, I was wrong about an awful lot. My outlook on what politics is about, how much to trust people in positions of authority, views on the clubbiness of the press, the direction of history, and probably a few other things, too, were all wrong. Could be worse; I still have life and all my limbs.
Maybe I’m still naive, but I still believe in our system of governance. And in we the people– you can’t fool all of us all the time. Only about 25 percent on each side are that hardcore partisan. But betraying trust sure can get you pretty far.
Redleg
I was wrong to give Bush the benefit of the doubt.
CaseyL
DiLaurentiis (I’ve been misspelling his name; hope I got it right this time) was the Executive Producer, IIRC.
Political wrongs: I was wrong to think Kerry would actually do something about the SwiftBoat scumbags; I was wrong to think Kerry actually meant it when he promised to “fight for you!,” only to fold his tent without a word after Ohio; and all in all, wrong to listen to all the desperately hopeful people who said he was just biding his time, waiting for the right moment to start counterattacking.
Kerry did a lot to redeem himself during the ’06 races, campaigning like mad for other candidates and giving oodles o’ money from his own campaign funds… but he has a tin ear for rhetoric, a lousy sense of timing, a lack of political leadership instincts, and I can’t imagine supporting him for President in ’08.
The Other Steve
I was wrong in believing South Africa would not abolish Apartheid as the result of economic sanctions.
Apparently James Carville sold him out. Told his wife that Kerry was planning to fight, and the Whitehouse called Ohio Republicans(i.e. Blackwell, etc.) and had them mobilize quickly against him.
The Other Steve
I agree with others here, that I didn’t think Macaca would have much effect, or the Mark Foley scandal.
I actually liked the first Dune better than the one SciFi channel did. I felt it had more mystery to it, and more accurately portrayed many of the characters.
Myrtle Parker
I was completely and utterly wrong about one Senator John McCain in 2000. I had read his book and thought, “now HERE is a Republican I can support with full throated enthusiasm!” Boy, was I *ever* wrong about that one.
Now, with John McCain going around and pimping himself out to the very same ‘agents of intolerance’ that he so righteously railed against in 2000, I am utterly ashamed that I was so *badly* scammed by him.
After reading his book and finding out that he actually wrote it himself, I thought this was a stand up guy. As honest and full of conviction that we are ever likely to find in a career politician. His service to his country and the horror he faced upon capture in Vietnam was an inspiring story especially set against the backdrop of his father’s and grandfather’s stories.
And to be sure, I did not agree with him on everything. But John McCain in 2000 seemed to me entirely reasonable. He was fiscally conservative, but not radically so. He might have been socially conservative, but he was more than willing to stand up to Falwell and the rest and tell them to shove their hypocritical rants. I loved that. McCain seemed like a godsend. If he had won the primary I would have voted for him in the general election and I’ll bet dollars to donuts that it would have been a landslide against Gore.
Now, these past few years have certainly exposed McCain for what he is… or at least what he has become. A bitter old politician who thinks he was screwed out of the presidency in 2000. He has become completely cynical.
He has become scrooge.
This old man will do anything to correct his mistake — thinking that honesty and straight talk will win him the white house — so he has embarked on a course of incredible pandering. John McCain has become the very anti-thesis of what he represented in 2000. More than anyone else, I think he has been changed the most by the events since 2000 and his loss in the primary.
I was completely, utterly, terribly WRONG to ever think of John McCain as a maverick. I bought the spin just like countless liberals and independents. Now, let’s hope that the country will see McCain for what he has become –> scrooge.
SeesThroughIt
Back in the 1990s when Puffy first announced he was going to be putting out a solo album, I laughed myself silly, claiming, “Who the hell is gonna buy an album made by a lame-ass executive producer? He’s not a rapper, he’s not a producer, he’s nothing. Nobody’s gonna want this shit.”
Several million copies of Puffy’s album sold later…erm, my mistake.
This actually points to a pattern I had for a while: I repeatedly made the mistake of underestimating the the stupidity of the American public at large. As a friend once told me, “A person is not stupid, but people are stupid.” Ayuh.
Speaking of Dune, the unofficial soundtrack that David Matthews (not the frat boy rocker, but the composer/arranger who worked with James Brown and Fred Wesley) did is a nice record. The track “Sandworms” is fantastic bassline-driven funk-jazz.
Quiddity
Like another commentator, I was wrong about McCain in 2000. Thought he was principled and moderate.
Matt S
I thought for sure that Howard Dean had the Democratic nomination sewn up in 2003, right up until his I Have A Scream moment. That being said, I think the inevitability of Dean’s victory was the conventional wisdom then so my example is rather banal.
Pb
I’m with Dave and zzyzx, except that I didn’t vote in 2000–but I would have voted for Nader, if votes for Nader had been counted in my state. Honestly, neither Gore nor Bush really appealed to me, but I didn’t think that either of them could really screw up the good thing we’d had going during the Clinton years…
Elvis Elvisberg
Huh. See, Myrtle, I agree with you now on McCain– his enabling of torture and his pretense of (or, worse, actual) support for an increase of 20,000 troops are worse sins than that kowtowing, to me. Gotta preserve that MaverickTM brand, even if it means torturing people, destroying our image, and killing a few more Amerrican soldiers. He’s also hiring loads of Bushists, now, and the guy who did the miscegenation ad in the Tennessee Senate race.
I thought that McCain had decided he’d do whatever it takes to win this time– that he’d changed somehow since 2000.
But maybe he was like this all along.
Either way, I was wrong to idolize him, that’s for sure.
ImJohnGalt
I really, really liked the book Atlas Shrugged. To compound the embarrassment, there are still some things about it I like, and I find no conflict between that and my feeling that I’m a massive bleeding-heart liberal.
Man, that’s tough. So, who can I make fun of now?
Pb
There’s nothing wrong with liking fiction, just so long as you don’t mistakenly confuse it with fact–I’ve enjoyed a lot of fictional books by C.S. Lewis, Orson Scott Card, you name it really…
Gold Star for Robot Boy
In 2000, I was wrong to think there wasn’t a dimes worth of difference between Gore and Bush.
I was even wronger to cast my vote for Nader. Thank God this was in a fairly safe Democratic state.
Mike
I was wrong about the WMD’s. I figured they would find at least ONE. After all, they still have the receipts.
Mike
Speaking of Dune, I would have liked very much to see the actors/actresses in the 1984 Dune in the newer SciFi miniseries. That would have been pretty good.
scarshapedstar
At the time, I called ThymeZone a concern troll and a Republican in disguise.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
foolishmortal
I’d echo previous commenters re: Nader and McCain. That Gore was my third choice is downright embarassing. The man has all the qualites to function as a president, and none of those required to be elected one.
On a similar cheapshot note, I was actually impressed by Bush’s promise of a “humble” foreign policy.
More substantively, I was an anarchist/libertarian in high school. Both dumb ideas, as it turns out, the difference being a matter of degree. All the same, both philosophies contain truth;only the implementation is oversimplified.
In terms of truly meaningful wrongness, it’s difficult to say; it is human nature to excise these memories. I was against the various Yugoslav wars, which in retrospect seem to have been, at least, not-evil. I thought the dollar would have tanked by now (I’ve got a stash of Euros puchased at $1.27 (yeah I know, late to the party)). At one time I thought MS was institutionally incapable of writing good code, and 2K refutes this, mostly.
I try to be relatively conservative(non-political sense) in my opinions, and those few in which I am not tend to be relatively unanswerable (a defense mechanism which before this post I had neglected to consider). The only risky positions I have are a) the Reagan campaign conspired to keep the Iranian hostages confined, and b)the Bush Admin knew full well that there were no WMDs at the time of invasion. Yeah I guess that makes me a flaming liberal, but if by some strange chance you give a shit, how do you square that w/ my opposition to gun control and Sarbanes–Oxley?
Anyway, the biggest mistake of my life has been pining for my 2nd girlfriend, whom ten years later I still love. You can get over political defeats, but women will fuck you up and no mistake.
zzyzx
I had my libertarian moment in high school/college too. Libertarianism is the new Marxism; people get fanatical about it when they’re young only to catch on to its massive flaws a decade later.
TenguPhule
Another load of Dick Cheney snot is gulped down by Scs
I propose we surgically attach Republican leader lips to their feet with a bypass leading directly from their colon and save us all a lot of trouble in the future. At the rate they’re going right now in the verbal clusterfucks, I’m not sure they’re going to survive to see the New Year, let alone next session.
Elvis Elvisberg
Libertarianism is the new comic-book fandom; acceptable only in small children and obsessive-compulsives.
Libertarianism is probably best known for its role in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Tsulagi
Soon after the invasion of Iraq begun I had fair-sized, semi-heated argument with my dad at a family gathering over how long before we’d be able to withdraw from the country. We both agreed Iraq would fall militarily within a month, but dad thought within six months to a year tops we’d be leaving the country in great shape. I told him given the stupidity of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, minimum two years and likely closer to three before we could start leaving the country in barely passable shape.
Dad voted for Bush in 00 and he was pissed. Mom stepped in the middle and we settled on a bet of a good bottle of Scotch. This past Thanksgiving we agreed we were both way off. Neither won. But at least we agreed Bush is a retard and incompetent. Guess his uniting magic is finally starting to work.
BTW, I completely agree with Myrtle above. In 00 I would have voted for McCain in a heartbeat, but now that sucker will be six feet under before I have a good word to say about him.
Jess
The costumes and set design totally rock in Lynch’s Dune.
Yeah, I’m with you on that one, although I liked the Fountainhead much better–it makes more sense to me that an artist would be a borderline psychopath. I was a big fan when I was a teenager, but I grew out of it, and it was better than being a big fan of, say, Shaun Cassidy. We’re allowed some guilty pleasures, I think, as long as we don’t vote with them.
Jess
Bingo.
scs
I was wrong that we have had too much immigration here in the last few years. After the Kim family incident, I took out my 50 state mapbook and checked out Oregon. And then I looked at some other states. I was reminded once again that our country is EMPTY. 300 million, 300 schmillion. It’s one big tumbleweed-strewn place. We could import all of Mexico and not even notice. We need to fill this place up so that tragedies like that that happened to James Kim are less likely to happen.
Chuck Butcher
I have never had one nice thing to say about Sen Gordon Smith OR (R), ever. You need to see what he had to say on the Senate Floor 12/07/06, OPB News if you can’t find it anywhere else, or link to me for a shorter version. If you don’t know what kind of Republican he is, you should know that despite his reputation as a moderate, he’s not, and he’s one of those very careful pols. This is a very strange story.
Chuck Butcher
scs
please, I live out here – where it’s actually thinner than where the Kims got lost – no more people please. If you’re going to come out, pay attention, obviously this place can kill you. There are very simple rules for not getting killed, they broke almost all of them.
Myrtle Parker
Chuck… this one?
He’s voted with the Republican Senate in lockstep for all of the Bush Presidency. His seat is on the line in ’08 and this is just a ploy. Oregon can do _much_ better than Gordon Smith.
Edmund Dantes
I actually went through a period in my life where I believed all the crap about being persecuted as a white male in this country. Thankfully it was in High School, and I grew out of it. It probably helped that I moved from a very rural area to a metropolitan area for school. It opens your eyes to a lot of stuff you don’t just see or recognize unless you witness it day in and day out.
dlw
Well, my biggest embarrassment would be way back in 8th grade or so. I wasn’t the big fat liberal I am now, I was an arch conservative like my folks (no, that wasn’t the embarrassing part). Anyway, Nixon had resigned and we were talking about it in current events at school and everyone was talking about his high-crimes. I piped in with “He hasn’t been convicted of anything.”
The teacher gave this pained expression I didn’t understand at the time, and to his credit, said “Well, that’s technically true.” and ended the discussion. Giving me the cover that I was just being annoyingly exacting.
But what I really meant is that he didn’t commit a crime. I was wrong.
Re: McCain. I loved McCain Model 2000. That I can’t stand the 2006 version is his embarrassment, not mine.
Krista
Best incidence of being wrong:
Me in early 2002 to my new boyfriend: “Honestly, sweetheart, I really have no idea how you can live in (insert name of boyfriend’s hometown – a teeny-tiny fishing village with a population of less than 1000 and no stoplights). I could NEVER live there — I’d go completely nuts!”
Fast forward to today: we’ve been living in that aforementioned teeny-tiny fishing village for almost 3 years now, will be building a house next year, and I’ve never been happier.
Worst incidence of being wrong:
Me in 2004 to my sister, who was thinking of moving herself and her two young children to Ontario to be with a man she’d been dating long-distance:
“Well, hon, I think you should go for it. You guys obviously love each other, and I think you can make it work. And besides, if you don’t go, you’ll always wonder what might have been.”
Fast forward one year later, and she was packing her bags to leave the man who’d become increasingly jealous and abusive, while her kids were broken-hearted over being torn apart from his kids, whom they’d come to love as siblings.
skip
I was firmly against the war because I saw no “existential threat;” but I refused to believe that there were no WMDs at all, and that it was all really about oil an Israel. That seemed preposterous and cynical. No longer!
More recently I quickly bought into the Putin poisoning plan–until I reflected on who stands to benefit from it. But I am not ready to blame the Oligarchs either until there is evidence, but the possibility is there in my mind.
I resolve to never again simply follow the media stampede at the first rumble and dust cloud.
Downpuppy
I went around telling people that Connecticut for Lieberman would collapse.
Horribly wrong, & I still have no idea why.
chopper
i thought ralph nader was a breath of fresh air in politics in 2000.
ThymeZone
I doubted that scs was a spoof. Then I read the post it made today. I was …. not just wrong, but stupid wrong.
Today’s post is a fine piece of spoof, excellent satire. It’s a takedown of the American Moron that could only have been written by an artist.
John and Tim have outdone themselves, and this is a throwdown to spoofs everywhere.
Third Eye Open
Crystal Pepsi…nuff’ said
Lee
Wow where to start….
With the biggie.
I did not think invading Iraq was a bad idea. My stance was “If they do this they better do it right and there better be WMDs”. I should have been MUCH more skeptical.
I thought Bush was more moderate than he turned out to be.
I believed Clinton and “no sex”.
Bombadil
I believed Tom Friedman.
Shygetz
I believed that Iraq had (or were very close to having) WMDs. I thought that the Bush administration must have had intelligence that they couldn’t tell us. I didn’t think this because I had any inside information–I thought this because I thought that, if they invaded and were wrong, the Republican party wouldn’t sniff elected office for 10 years. I thought that this was just conventional wisdom, and that no one would DARE to invade on flimsy pretext, because the American public would surely punish them terribly. I was eager to rub Europe’s noses in the WMDs we discovered, and to parade the evidence of the blatant violations of the Iraq embargo by Russia and various European countries that we would undoubtedly discover. I was willing to suck down Bush’s inane domestic policies in order to do what had to be done in foreign policy to keep the world safe from rogue nations.
I was a fool.
DougJ
I thought the Red Sox were smart to sign Renteria to that long term contract the year before last.
Sirkowski
I thought we’d at least get Osama.
Jack Roy
Jeebuz, Doug, that’s an embarrassing one! No love for O-Cab?
mrmobi
Hooo, boy, this is a long list.
Wrong about Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell.
Wrong to give Bush the benefit of the doubt.
Completely and totally fucking wrong about McCain.
Given the above, and the fact that I think Hillary Clinton is un-electable, I’m considering going to Vegas and betting against myself. Do they let you do that?
Going back a bit, I wagered a very expensive dinner that Clarence Thomas would not be confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. Thanks so much to the 11 Democrats who voted for confirmation.
There is one thing I know for sure, and that is that the Bears are the worst 10-2 team in football. Completely positive.
Jack Roy
Hey, Tim F—when do we get to hear you say you were embarrassingly wrong to think commenters on this thread would actually observe the ground rules?
scarshapedstar
Every time a thread goes meta, Jesus eats a fetus.
Richard Bottoms
I thought Superman Returns wouldn’t suck.
So is the Litvinenko poisoning a WMD attack yet?
More victims.
DougJ
He’s kind of injury prone. I’m even more disappointed that they didnt’ keep Gonzales. Why take Lugo for 4 million more a year? I just don’t get it.
Echtheow the Geat
I once spared an Irishman’s life in exchange for a flask of whiskey and his eldest daughter. It was an error; he guided the swordsmen of Munster to an ambush in which many of my comrades were slaughtered.
Andrew
I liked McCain in 2000 and would have voted for him over Gore.
That was a really dumbass thing to think.
But saying the Bears are the worst 10-2 team in football? Only if you mean ALL OF FOOTBALL HISTORY. They suck. I don’t care if they win the Superbowl — they are the worst.
Zombie Santa Claus
I once let myself get killed by Canadians.
canuckistani
I thought Cheney was a pragmatist who would keep Bush in line.
Bombadil
We may have a winner, here, folks!
SeesThroughIt
Oof!
By the way, add me to the list of people who were unimpressed by both Bush and Gore in 2000 and thought there wouldn’t be much difference in voting for one or the other. Whoops! Also, I bought McCain’s straight-talkin’, sensible Republican image. Whoops again!
dreggas
Oh geez…this could be written into a book.
1) I was wrong to think Gore and Bush weren’t much different.
2) I was wrong for thinking McCain was any sort of Independent thinker and a true mans man who wouldn’t sell out at earliest convenience.
3) I was wrong to believe bush would be a one term do nothing (thanks 9/11 and idiots).
4) I was wrong to give bush the benefit of the doubt after 9/11.
5) I was wrong to believe Bush would get Osama “Dead or Alive”.
6) I was wrong to believe there still were WMD’s in Iraq (good ruse on Hussein’s part).
7) I was wrong to believe the leadership under Cheney and the backroom team was in any way shape or form competent.
8) I was wrong to ignore my father’s advice (and his list on this would be longer than mine though he’ll never admit it) and to believe the government.
9) I am probably wrong in believing things will get better.
10) I am probably wrong in believing things can’t get any worse.
11) I was wrong to watch Fox News for so long after 9/11 and during the invasion of Iraq (call it blind patriotism watching that crap and not thinking on my part).
12) I was wrong to believe Powell when he went before the UN (This administration has destroyed a once great man).
13) I was wrong to believe Republicans were for individual freedoms.
14) I was wrong to believe Republicans were for limited government (boy they fucked that up and honestly, as an idea, it seems to be dead).
15) I was wrong to believe Republicans were fiscally conservative.
16) I was wrong to hate Clinton (inherited it from my parents).
17) I was wrong in being glad we had bush and not gore as president after 9/11.
18) I was wrong to believe that in ’04 the country would have finally woken up and realized they’d been had.
19) I was wrong in believing that more than 60% of the population was intelligent enough to see they’d been had.
20) I was wrong for believing Kerry would fight in Ohio (fucking Carville).
the list could go on. Thankfully I pulled myself out of the kool-aid jug and am recovering.
Chuck Butcher
Myrtle Parker
Chuck… this one? is the light weight version, the piece I got from OPB is a bit more caustic.
YellowJournalism
I voted for Nader. I am SO sorry. I was in college. It was the thing to do at the time.
Teak111
I hope I’m not wrong that the democrats can make some difference in congress and get the country moving forward on some important issues. Ask me this same question in two years.
srv
I once actually believed Migs operating from Grenada could pose a threat to the US.
Thankfully, that lesson has led me to be right about everything else since then. Faith in authority is always misplaced.
thehim
I once mentioned that I was leaning towards Joe Biden in 2008. Embarrassing.
Dave Trowbridge
This post, early in the run-up to the Iraq war. Given the human suffering in Iraq since then, the insensitivity and callousness of my comment on this war toy are gravely embarassing.
And it certainly doesn’t help that I’ve since become a Quaker. Too often the Light shows you things you wish you didn’t have to look at.
So I feel absolutely no urge to mock anyone else. Pot and kettle.
Jess
Oh yeah, I (mercifully) forgot about that one–I thought for sure Lieberman was toast. I also have no idea why I was wrong on that one. What a strange world we live in.
Jack Roy
Doug—I know what you mean about Gonzales, but Lugo’s actually a better fielder than his errors suggest. His range and zone ratings are better than AGon’s, although his fielding percentage is much worse. Essentially, AGon’s range allows him to reach more balls in play and yields more errors because he gets more chances. The classic Bill James fielder, with a better bat. I loved watching Gonzales field, but I’ve come to believe that it’s a definite upgrade.
mclaren
I actually supported the initial Iraq invasion (not the occupation, the invasion) because I was dumb enough and gullible enough to believe the U.S. government and Colin Powell at the U.N. when they all lined up and told us there was overwhelming evidence that Saddam had WMDs, but they just couldn’t give us the evidence because it was classified.
Silly me.
The instant — and I mean THE INSTANT — it became clear there were no WMDs and never had been (which was around 2 weeks post-invasion), we should’ve gotten the hell out of Iraq. No garrison force. No nation-building. No temporizing. No equivocating. We should’ve packed up the U.S. army and left. Sad so then, been saying so ever since.
But there you are. I was colossally wrong ever to have supported the Iraq invasion in the first place. I was stupidly wrong. Foolishly wrong. Devastatingly wrong. I was dumb, dumb, dumb, ever to have believed a word that came out of any govenrment official’s mouth about WMDs or Iraq or Saddam. I was an idiot to believe that a presentation to the United Nations general assembly could’ve been forged and faked and filled chock full of bogus intel and bullshit made-up fantasies.
Naive of me, eh?