Accidental Truth
Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
When I noticed a headline recently that referred to the opponents of the Iraq War as Cassandras while the text of the article attempted to portray them as mistaken, I had to wonder if the headline writer was playing a joke, or the author of the article was having a “Vizzini moment.”
While I don’t expect that most people have memorized Bulfinch’s Mythology or they remember the Iliad from high school and/or college, they should have looked it up before using the word.
Cassandra was “cursed” by accurately predicting the future and having her predictions ignored.
The Iraq Study Group continued the practice by omitting testimony from those who accurately predicted the outcome of an invasion of Iraq and only listening to people who had already shown their lack of good judgment by supporting the war.
How many opportunities do these people get to be wrong, before the government and media decide to listen to people who were right?
Update: Via WTF is it now?, I went to Welcome to Pottersville and found the current reference to the Cassandra article in a Paul Krugman column. That it was in The Weekly Standard is not surprising.
