Oddjob, Don’t Read This Post

Because I don’t want you to abandon me forever for going on about Gore again.

Except this time, it’s not really me. It’s Matt Yglesias at Tapped:

THE CASE FOR GORE. Marshall Wittmann floats the notion of an Al Gore presidential run in 2008. He's a bit of a skeptic, but I'm pretty enthusiastic. Gore offers, I think, just about what the Democrats need: an opposition to the Iraq War that's based neither on retrospective carping nor a general reluctance to use force, but rather a realistic assessment of the weakness of the case for war. He was a liberal hawk back in the 1980s before it was cool and, even better, made an effort during his congressional days to become a genuine expert on military issues and not just rack up a reflexively "tough" record. He backed the first Gulf War when most of his colleagues opposed it. During the Clinton administration he was, by all accounts, identified with the more aggressive side during the internal foreign-policy debates.

But as the country moved toward the invasion of Iraq he saw -- at the time -- what most liberal hawks now concede at least privately in retrospect: that there was no urgent security threat from Iraq and that the Bush administration wasn't up to the task of accomplishing the more airily idealistic things that one might cite in the war's favor.

Obviously, there's much time to go and many other factors in play, but I think this is both politically and substantively the right ground to stake out for 2008 and there aren't very many prominent politicians who hit the sweet spot back in 2002 and 2003.

It’s a good point. Especially since, as Atrios noted earlier today:

Herbert has an excellent read in the Times today. But, let me add in the political dimension. I wonder if Democrats realize that Iraq will be the central issue in both the '06 an '08 elections? I don't think they do. sad.

It sure isn’t going to be a porn tax, I can tell you that much.