"On October 7, 2002, in Cincinnati, Ohio, George W. Bush delivered the defining speech of his Presidency. In the face of "clear evidence of peril" from a regime harboring terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, he declared, "we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

Five days earlier, a forty-one-year-old Illinois state legislator had given a momentous speech of his own, although few recognized it as such at the time. "I don't oppose all wars," Barack Obama told a few hundred Chicago protesters, adding:


I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?