Denied The Gloat

It seems like yesterday that being against the war in Iraq was tantamount to being a Communist. I love the financial world analogies so here goes. It must be time to sell the losers, buy the winners and bury the details deeper than anyone reads. In time people forget about the poor performance and only remember owning the right stocks.
In politics, at the behest of the strategists, you serve up the crow as early as possible, eat it shamelessly, knowing that time will work in your favor. When it counts, they will have nicely positioned their clients barely a nose behind the real courageous and independent thinkers, who actually were against the war when it mattered. I don't know about you but I sure wish I had the, "If I knew then what I know now, I would have...", way out of a few of the bad decisions I've made.
What I'd really like to hear now is the internal dialog of the ones who knew better but didn't have the personal fortitude to hold to their convictions. The loss of gloating rights must be painful.
On the subject of lost gloating rights, the predicament of the century has to go to former President George H.W. Bush. Here is what he said after the gulf war. He did not give the the order to overthrow the Iraqi Government because it would have, "incurred incalculable human and political costs... We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq".
Talk about an unfortunate alignment of the stars. Imagine the work that goes into suppressing the urge to spread far and wide the "I told you so's." The only thing in the world that could prevent him from doing so would be the current situation.