Compare a huge anti-war rally with a few "Bush = Hitler" signs to what mainstream conservative writers were saying.

Reuters

On the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, The Guardian editorializes that "with the passage of time, the judgment of those who took to the streets against the rush to war only looks wiser." My colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that "more than anything the Iraq War taught me the folly of mocking radicalism. It seemed, back then, that every 'sensible' and 'serious' person you knew -- left or right -- was for the war. And they were all wrong. Never forget that they were all wrong. And never forget that the radicals with their drum circles and their wild hair were right." Adds Rod Dreher, "I don't think this makes radicals always right, or beyond mockery. But I learned that sometimes, radicals of the left and the right see things, however imperfectly, that most of us don't."

All excellent articles, but one caveat: The vast majority of the people who took to the streets to oppose the Iraq War weren't radicals, and they weren't making radical arguments. As Daniel Larison points out, "The people in government advocating for an illegal, preventive war to counter a threat that did not yet exist and never would were the ones proposing a radical 'solution' to an entirely manageable problem, and they did so without any consideration of or preparation for the consequences. When judging someone's 'radicalism,' one should always focus on the substance of the policy he is proposing rather than the position or status of the person."