JUDY MILLER ON SECOND THOUGHTS

Miller on Robert McNamara, at the Fox News site (emphasis added):

... 58,000 American soldiers' lives would ultimately be lost. But still the war would not be won.

McNamara spent the next 40 years in atonement, asking in his 1995 belated, best-selling memoir five questions he said he wished he and others had asked from the start: would, for instance, the fall of South Vietnam really trigger the fall of all Southeast Asia? Would that pose a grave threat to America national security?

By 2003, the five questions had ballooned into "11 lessons" about the use of power....

As Ted Sorensen, the speechwriter and adviser who worked with McNamara in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, reminded the Associated Press, most senior government officials "don't admit error, ever.''

But they can and should ask the kind of policy questions he posed after it had long ceased to matter. His sad fate reminds us of the enormous potential consequences of failing to do so.

Gee, Judy, ya think? Interesting that you of all people should bring this up.