I’m glad I wrote the column, though, even if I’m wrong, because it helped bring into focus something else that I’ve been wanting to say for a long time, which is that it’s a sad state of affairs in our politics when people are so locked into being in one camp or the other that they can’t review the evidence as it presents itself and adjust their thinking accordingly.

How else can you explain some local columnist with liberal intentions drawing so much interest just because he wondered aloud that maybe he had been wrong and that the other side had been right?

I don’t ever want to be one of those columnists — or commentators — who just take all the information they receive and hammer it into their pre-conceived notion of the truth. —Mark Brown —What’s so shocking about having second thoughts? (Chicago Sun-Times)

Brown reacts to the buzz that resulted over a column he wrote yesterday, in which he briefly suggested that the sight of so many Iraqis lininig up to vote was enough to make him entertain the notion that perhaps, just maybe, Bush might in some small way not be completely and utterly wrong about everything he has ever done, said, thought, and felt.

I’ll save Brown’s punchline for those who actually click on the link and read the whole column… (if it doesn’t disappear behind a paid-subscription firewall, that is).

Update: Dan Gillmor offers this sobering flashback:

NY Times (1967): U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote. United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam’s presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.