Some context: Edward Wadie Said (Arabic: dwrd wdy` s`yd [waedi:? sae?i:d], Idward Wadi' Sa'id; 1 November 1935 - 25 September 2003) was a professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. A Palestinian American born in Mandatory Palestine, he was a citizen of the United States by way of his father, a U.S. Army veteran.
In the revised edition of Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (1997), Said criticized the Orientalist bias of the Western news media's reportage about the Middle East and Islam, especially the tendency to editorialize "speculations about the latest conspiracy to blow up buildings, sabotage commercial airliners, and poison water supplies." He criticized the American military involvement in the Kosovo War (1998-99) as an imperial action; and described the Iraq Liberation Act (1998), promulgated during the Clinton Administration, as the political license that predisposed the U.S. to invade Iraq in 2003, which was authorised with the Iraq Resolution (2 October 2002); and the continual support of Israel by successive U.S. presidential governments, as actions meant to perpetuate regional political instability in the Middle East.  In the event, despite being sick with leukemia, as a public intellectual, Said continued criticising the U.S. Invasion of Iraq in mid-2003; and, in the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper, in the article "Resources of Hope" (2 April 2003), Said said that the U.S. war against Iraq was a politically ill-conceived military enterprise:  My strong opinion, though I don't have any proof, in the classical sense of the word, is that they want to change the entire Middle East, and the Arab world, perhaps terminate some countries, destroy the so-called terrorist groups they dislike, and install regimes friendly to the United States. I think this is a dream that has very little basis in reality. The knowledge they have of the Middle East, to judge from the people who advise them, is, to say the least, out of date and widely speculative. . . .  I don't think the planning for the post-Saddam, post-war period in Iraq is very sophisticated, and there's very little of it. U.S. Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman and U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith testified in Congress, about a month ago, and seemed to have no figures, and no ideas [about] what structures they were going to deploy; they had no idea about the use of [the Iraqi] institutions that exist, although they want to de-Ba'thise the higher echelons, and keep the rest.  The same is true about their views of the [Iraqi] army. They certainly have no use for the Iraqi opposition that they've been spending many millions of dollars on; and, to the best of my ability to judge, they are going to improvise; of course, the model is Afghanistan. I think they hope that the U.N. will come in and do something, but, given the recent French and Russian positions, I doubt that that will happen with such simplicity.
Was there backlash from people who disagreed with him?
A: 

Some context: Brad Rogers Carson (born March 11, 1967) is an American lawyer and politician from the state of Oklahoma who served as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness from 2015-16. In that role, he initiated a number of notable reforms to include opening up all combat positions to women, open service by transgender service members, and new recruiting and retention practices. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the United States House of Representatives from 2001-05. He served as Undersecretary of the Army from 2014-15 and as General Counsel of the Army from 2012-2014.
In 2004, Carson sought the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Don Nickles. Although he easily won the Democratic nomination, he faced a tough general election contest with Coburn, who had won the nomination by an unexpectedly large margin. Carson described himself as a Conservative Democrat. Carson distanced himself from the national Democratic Party on most public policy matters. He portrayed himself as more moderate than his Republican opponent. Coburn, by contrast was one of the "true believers" in the 1995 Republican House freshman class and its Contract With America. This race was considered one of a handful of competitive races for the U.S. Senate in 2004.  Both Carson and Coburn were fairly conservative on social issues. For example, Coburn and Carson both presented themselves as supporting the traditional definition of marriage as "a union of one man and one woman" in the gay marriage debate. Although registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans in Oklahoma by almost 2 to 1 at the time, most Oklahoma Democrats are quite conservative by national standards.  By many accounts, the 2004 U.S. Senate campaign between Carson and Coburn was one of the most partisan races of that year. Coburn claimed that a vote for Carson was a vote for Democrats such as Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. Carson was also hampered by George W. Bush's tremendous popularity in the state (the John Kerry campaign made virtually no effort in Oklahoma). In the November election, Coburn defeated Carson by a large margin, 53 percent to 42 percent. While Carson trounced Coburn in the 2nd District, Coburn swamped Carson in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and the closer-in Tulsa suburbs. Coburn won the state's two largest counties, Tulsa and Oklahoma, by a combined 86,000 votes -- more than half of his overall margin of 166,000 votes.  Despite Carson's loss, election analyst Stuart Rothenberg called the Carson campaign one of the four best run campaigns in the nation in 2004. The Weekly Standard called him "The Perfect Democrat" After the election, Carson wrote an article for The New Republic which was the subject of much discussion.
Was Carson also a Republican?
A:
Carson described himself as a Conservative Democrat.