Paul Krugman has a column under the headline "Marches of Folly" that likens concern about the deficit to the concern about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (a concern he claims was unwarranted). He acknowledges, "I don't want to push the analogy too far...these days dissenters don't operate in the atmosphere of menace, the sense that raising doubts could have devastating personal and career consequences, that was so pervasive in 2002 and 2003."
If opponents of the Iraq War did indeed fear devastating personal and career consequences, those fears were as baseless as Professor Krugman thinks the concerns about the deficit and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were. After all, Paul Krugman went on to win the Nobel Prize; Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, and Valerie Plame Wilson got a reported $2.5 million book deal and a Hollywood movie made about her. Yet somehow in the case of the Iraq War opponents, having had the unwarranted fears of devastating consequences is a sign of being admirable, yet the the case of the Iraq War advocates and deficit hawks, having had the supposedly unwarranted fears is a sign of being a fool.