The war in Iraq has been over for a few weeks now, and the debate over whether we should have gone to war has largely died down except for an extreme fringe of the American public who would protest anything Bush does. Before the war, there were those who made extreme predictions about what would happen as a result: It would be another Vietnam, costly and lengthy; people would rise up and defeat us; we would not see any support; our mission would enrage the proverbial Arab “”street;”” terrorist attacks would increase, and so on.

But now everyone is debating a different story, and some are attempting to stick it to those outspoken critics that have got it so wrong in the past and continue to find themselves on the wrong side of history. Some are conceding defeat in the realm of debate, while others have merely shied away from the limelight, no doubt attempting to wait out the I-told-you-so’s.

Diana West succinctly worded the change in the tide when she wrote, “”The most evocative news photo to come out of the liberation of Baghdad may be one of a young Iraqi man, dressed in a denim jacket, holding a homemade poster celebrating the “”Hero of the Peace”” — George W. Bush — and kissing the president’s faintly smiling photo. And after the fall of Saddam’s Baghdad statue, accompanied with Iraqis dragging the head around for hours while striking it with the soles of their shoes — a great insult in the Arab world — it was then left up to those who predicted problems to admit their error.

The first such political pundit to admit his error did so in a gutsy way. It was Andy Rooney, of “”60 Minutes”” fame, in his syndicated column, that did it in possibly the biggest way. “”I watched the victory celebrations in Baghdad and have seldom in my life been so pleased to find I was wrong,”” he wrote. “”I did not think we should attack Iraq without the approval of the United Nations. The UN was wrong, I was wrong and George W. Bush was right. Fortunately, he’s President and I am not.””

Welcome to the right side of history, Andy. We salute your honesty. Another political pundit of the liberal persuasion also raised the specters of defeat and quagmireprior to the war in Iraq. The author was Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times. “”Last September, a gloom-and-doom columnist warned about Iraq: ‘If we’re going to invade, we need to prepare for a worst-case scenario involving street-to-street fighting,'”” he conceded. “”Ahem. Yes, well, that was my body double while I was on vacation.””

And Kristof also offers us a point-by-point wording of why he was wrong: “”Despite [what I wrote in my] columns, Iraq never carried out terrorist attacks in the U.S. or abroad, it didn’t use chemical or biological weapons, and it didn’t launch missiles against Israel in hopes of triggering a broader war,”” he confessed. “”Turkey has not invaded northern Iraq to attack the Kurds.””

Body double or not, he joins ranks with Mr. Rooney as being wrong, but having the guts to admit it. Other political pundits, not by trade, have not been so forthcoming. For instance, one of the most outspoken celebrities that has even promised a change in behavior should she be wrong on the matter, will still not admit defeat.

Janeane Garofalo, as you can remember from — well, I’m not sure, what does she do again? — certainly owes the American public a bit of action. In fact, she went so far as to promise Bill O’Reilly on Fox New Channel’s “”The No Spin Zone”” she would crawl on glass and apologize to the president of the United States herself if she was wrong.

“”I would be so willing to say I’m sorry, I hope to God that I can be made a buffoon of, that people will say you were wrong, you were a fatalist, and I will go to the White House on my knees on cut glass and say, hey, you were right, I shouldn’t have doubted you,”” she said. “”But I think to think that is preposterous.””

The war is over, thousands of Iraqis have greeted us, and although some extremist Muslim fundamentalists want us out, we did the right thing. Looks as if a certain someone owes President Bush a big apology. And what a spectacle that apology would turn out to be. But I don’t think it is coming any time soon — she’s probably afraid of the president. She did, after all, refer to President Bush as being just as dangerous as Saddam Hussein but “”in a different way.””

But I doubt the compassionate conservative will stick her in the torture chamber, along with any of the others predicting doom and gloom for this historical war. Come one, come all, admit the ideological defeat. You’ll feel much better after the fact.