Labash has occasionally departed from the "Weekly Standard"'s perceived political positions. He once stated, "I was sour on the war (in Iraq) when many, many of our neoliberal friends were still something close to cheerleaders...I just never understood what was in it for America to get bogged down there for the better part of a decade. Still don't. I thought it was a bad play." Bush, he said in 2004, "has spent the better part of a year and a half painting smiley faces on Iraq, when it is still a festering sore, to put it charitably."