This time, air all opinions on Iraq

News viewers are used to spin. But some may have been dizzy with dissonance this week when the Sunday morning shows and cable news networks trotted out some of the original Iraq war architects and advocates.

Yet there they were — Bush administration figures like Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremer and Andrew Card, as well as journalists Judith Miller and Bill Kristol, among others — all opining on-air about the crisis sparked by ISIL (also called ISIS), the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, a radical Islamic force that now controls a broad swath of Iraq. And it wasn't just on TV: Bremer backed up his point in the Wall Street Journal, which also ran Dick and Liz Cheney's excoriation of foreign policy under President Obama.

But unlike the more muted response to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this time the pushback was loud — and fast.

Columnists quickly criticized the resiliency of Iraq war supporters. "Where is the accountability in Iraq?" asked Katrina Vanden Heuvel in the Washington Post. "Iraq Everlasting" wrote Frank Rich in New York magazine. "The Gall of Dick Cheney," chided Charles Blow in the New York Times.

On TV, Jon Stewart gave the media amnesia and the ubiquity of Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham the "Daily Show" treatment.

On the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid said that "being on the wrong side of Dick Cheney is being on the right side of history."

And on Twitter, James Fallows, a national correspondent for the Atlantic who was one of the relatively few media members to prominently oppose the invasion, said in a frequently retweeted message: "Working hypothesis: no one who stumped for an original Iraq invasion gets to give 'advice' about disaster now. Or should get listened to."

But in seeking to not repeat the run-up to the invasion, it's important not to repeat the mistake of muffling opposing opinions, even if they come from those identified with what many now consider a discredited decision.

Besides, it's not just those closely associated with President George W. Bush: Former (and future?) Democratic presidential prospects Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were among 29 Democrats to back Bush in the 2003 Senate vote to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, and no one has deemed the previous and current secretaries of state irrelevant to the renewed Iraq debate.

Groupthink should be avoided in any instance. Witness 2003, when war drums drowned out dissenting voices that proved prescient about how ill-advised — if not illegal — such a war would be.

Yet while the original neoconservatives shouldn't be quieted, they should be questioned on how their previous positions square with their criticism of Obama's Iraq record, as Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly did when she responsibly and respectfully asked Dick Cheney blunt questions in an interview this week.

Beyond asking sources tough questions, though, the news media should ask themselves tough questions about sources. Such as: Wouldn't the nation be better served if it also turned to experts who don't fit the established parameters of the binary Beltway establishment?

There are experts who give context to these complexities based on years of research, scholarship and on-the-ground analysis. Many work in academia or at think tanks. They're thorough and thoughtful, embrace nuance over certitude, and often can't be categorized on a convenient — but simplistic — left-right, hawk-dove divide.

But because they are not instantly identifiable, speak in paragraphs instead of sound bites and reflexively consider, not contest, divergent viewpoints, these experts appear on the "PBS NewsHour," National Public Radio and on opinion pages more frequently than they do on cable news networks or Sunday morning shows.

Intervening in Iraq, or anywhere in today's roiling world, is the most profound presidential decision. Like all leaders, Obama will turn to advisers and allies, both abroad and here at home. But he'll also gauge public opinion. An open, inclusive, informed debate that expands beyond the voices usually associated with Washington will serve the public, and thus the country, well.