only were against it when things started to go bad

And even then their opposition was narrowly limited. You could say the war was bad, you could say the war was based on a lie (although this was buried), but somehow it was too far to suggest throwing the architects of that war in prison. You likewise couldn't suggest an immediate pullout, or giving Iraqis any democratic say in our presence there. Paying Iraq reparations for destroying their country on false pretenses? You'd get laughed out of the room, even if you couched it in "nation building" terms. And of course any broader critique of the military was strictly off-limits.