[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mary Lyon

Erich Segal, the author of "Love Story," once put the phrase "Love means never having to say you're sorry" into the official collection of favorite American catch-phrases. Up until very recently, we've had to suffer under a latter-day perversion of that: "The 'War on Terror' means never having to say you're sorry." Now, however, comes a series in Slate - - called "Why Did We Get It Wrong," five years after the start of the Iraq War/Invasion/Occupation. Slate invited what it called "the best known 'liberal hawks' and others" to weigh in on that question, five years after they were roaring and stamping their feet to go get Saddam. The compendium makes for some ironic and even sadly amusing reading.