OBAMA’S MILITARY ADVISER ON IRAQ, FROM 2003: “There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a walkover.” Well, it was, in the beginning. But Tom Maguire observes: “McPeak is a part of the American story; Barack can no more disown him than he can disown his own grandmother, who made comments about the war effort against the Japanese that made Barack cringe.”

Of course, one of Hillary’s advisers said it would be a “cakewalk.” And the invasion part pretty much was. Nobody — in or out of the Bush Administration — worried enough about the reconstruction phase.