The Charge of the Lightweight Brigade

-- Q -- How long does it take a man to do a complete 180... about everything he's ever stood for?

-- A -- At least 24 hours... the paperwork is incredible...

In January 2003, Ignatieff, then director of the Carr Center at Harvard University, wrote an impassioned essay that gave moral sanction to the Iraq invasion, and criticized leftists and human rights groups for failing to understand that sometimes your only choice of action is the lesser of two evils.

To be sure, with his political ambitions to the fore, Ignatieff eventually tried to convince everyone (especially Liberal Party members) he'd changed his mind about lesser evils.

In a 2007 mea culpa, he referred to the Iraq war as an "unfolding catastrophe" (never mind that the surge was working) and said he wouldn't have supported the invasion if he'd known what would happen.

It's the kind of contradictions you get... when you dig a little deeper into the Iggy file...

"It was right for me to support the Iraq war when I was an academic, because academics live in outer space on Planet Zinfandel, and play with ideas all day."

"But now, as a politician in a country that opposed the war, I'll admit I screwed up, because politicians must deign to harness the wild mares of whimsy to the ox-cart of cold, calculated reality."