Too little too late

It was a culinary rebuke that echoed around the world, heightening the sense of tension between Washington and Paris in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. But now the US politician who led the campaign to change the name of french fries to "freedom fries" has turned against the war.

Walter Jones, the Republican congressman for North Carolina who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, told a local newspaper the US went to war "with no justification".

  Guardian article

Too bad he couldn't have been a little more circumspect when rational heads were sorely needed.

Mr Jones, who in March 2003 circulated a letter demanding that the three cafeterias in the House of Representatives' office buildings ban the word french from menus, said it was meant as a "light-hearted gesture".

Sure it was. And if it was - is this the kind of person we want in the Congress? Oh, but what am I saying....

[T]he name change, still in force, made headlines around the world, both for what it said about US-French relations and its pettiness.

[...]

Asked by a reporter for the North Carolina News and Observer about the name-change campaign - an idea Mr Jones said at the time came to him by a combination of God's hand and a constituent's request - he replied: "I wish it had never happened."

Don't make me repeat myself.

Although he voted for the war, he has since become one of its most vociferous opponents on Capitol Hill, where the hallway outside his office is lined with photographs of the "faces of the fallen".

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he told the newspaper. "Congress must be told the truth."

And maybe Congressmen could be a little more level-headed and deliberate, looking for the truth rather than jumping on the mob mentality mass transit when it pulls into the station.

A little tribute to Mr. Jones:

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

"Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about."

"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

--Mark Twain