Charles Pierce:

The eagerness of smart young people to join in the circle jerk back in 2002 and 2003 was one of the more disillusioning aspects of the whole business — and not a bad argument for reinstating the military draft, if only as a measure, as Dr. Johnson once said about hanging, to concentrate the mind wonderfully. A great number of them joined the circle jerk in order to secure their credentials in the Serious People Club. They joined in support of a war in which thousands of people their age would be killed and maimed. At least give Ezra [Klein] credit. He seems to feel pretty badly about the whole business. Terrific. He won’t grow up to be Richard Perle.

Exactly. If you thought it was just, why didn’t you do something?

While ‘credentialing’ was a key reason many censored themselves, there were a lot of people who wanted that war, who needed that war (as long as someone else did the fighting and dying). In life, you make decisions, and some of them define you. That decision was a hallmark of a broken person.