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Comment by x86_64Ubuntu | Hacker News Reader

No one who was against the Iraq War from the onset is doing particularly well. When was the last time you heard anything from Phil Donahue?

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Are we evaluating the wisdom and virtue of people's actions based on whether they keep them in the limelight? Just because your protest won't necessarily win out doesn't mean you shouldn't mount one.

I swear most of HN barely reads a thread before firing off some half-baked retort. The comment above about Phil Donahue was a reply to this:

>Imagine if he had resigned in protest at the decision to push for the invasion of Iraq. He would now be hailed as a hero around the world.

Nowhere in the above reply about Donahue was there an implication that people shouldn't protest, or that the virtue of their actions are based on whether those actions keep them in the limelight.

Phil Donahue is 85. I imagine he's been taking things a bit easier for 10 or 15 years. It's not as though Colin Powell has been making headlines for a while either, and for no doubt similar reasons. This has nothing to do with whether or not he should have taken a stand against the war in Iraq. I agree with disneygibson: Colin Powell had an exceptional career, all of which led up to that moment, where he simply blew it.

The only reason why you say he blew it at the end is because it was on public display. Perhaps his whole career progression was being a company man who followed orders blindly but we were never privy to it.

DC is a town that rewards failing upwards.

Phil Donahue was fired for questioning the evidence that was sending us to war.

Sure, or at least they'd discussed firing him because of that (but it was in advance of the invasion, I believe), but he was already what he might have considered retirement age when that happened. Could he have gone on elsewhere if he'd wanted to? I bet he could have done. Maybe he just didn't want to.

> No one who was against the Iraq War from the onset is doing particularly well.

Would that include President Obama?

Well, I hadn't heard much about Phil Donahue for some years before that.

He had a fairly popular cable show, and the ratings for it weren't a secret. He was fired as the television networks went on a war footing.

I don't know about that. Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul both raised their profile significantly, and while there have been hiccups since then, they're both much more prominent than they were before 2003 — Ron Paul's son may have even benefited by association.

Isn't "argumentum ad populum" a fallacy?

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