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Monday, July 10, 2006

 
IRAQ MILLENNIALISM?
KURTZ: You were chided recently for writing several times in different occasions "the next six months are crucial in Iraq," the next six months. And now you’ve written a column saying that Americans are simply not going to tolerate this kind of anarchy for another two years and deadlines have to be set. Were you conscious that you were now shifting your position on this?

[THOMAS] FRIEDMAN: Not really...

[...]

The fact is that the outcome there is unclear, and I reflected that in my column. And I will continue to reflect.

KURTZ: Unclear, but you’re running out of patience?

FRIEDMAN: Well, it’s not that I’m running out of patience. The story’s evolving.
--CNN's RELIABLE SOURCES
About this time more and more Millerites were accepting a new prediction first promulgated by one of their number, the Revernd Samuel S. Snow, who believed that the date of the Second Coming would be October 22, 1844...

The two partial disconfirmations (April 23, 1843 and the end of the calendary year 1843) and one complete and unequivocal disconfirmation (March 21, 1844) served simply to strengthen the conviction that the Coming was near at hand and to increase time and energy that Miller's adherents spent trying to convince others.
--WHEN PROPHECY FAILS by Leon Festinger et al.



CONTRAPOSITIVE is edited by Dan Aibel. Dan's a playwright. He lives in New York City.