Why didn't Bush listen?

Max Boot says the reason President Bush didn’t listen to the war critics is because they were all wrong:

Sen. John Kerry: "I do not believe our nation is prepared for war. If we do go to war, for years people will ask why Congress gave in. They will ask why there was such a rush to so much death and destruction when it did not have to happen."

Columnist Robert Novak: "It is probable that after Bush orders the first shot fired, anything that looks American throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe could come into the cross hairs of a rifle sight or be blown up by a car bomb."

Former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski: "The United States is likely to become estranged from many of its European allies."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: "It'll be brutal and ugly. The 45,000 body bags the Pentagon has sent to the region are all the evidence we need of the high price in lives and blood that we will have to [bear]."

Former President Jimmy Carter: "The devastating consequences will be [felt] … for decades to come, in economic and political destabilization of the Middle East region."

Actually there's a perfectly good reason why President George H.W. Bush didn't listen to these Cassandras: They were wrong. You see, all these gloomy predictions weren't made prior to the war of 2003. They were made before the war of 1991.

Is it possible to have too much perspective?

[via Boortz]