I’m sure that the Lieberman turn-of-events has excited the dKos branch of the liberal blogosphere, what has become synonymous with the “netroots” label, but what’s interested me (naturally) is the way the Lamont victory - and the boneheaded commentary and rhetoric that’s tut-tutted at it - has reenergized the far less rootsy center-leftish blogosphere and […]
Wow. I’ve refrained from commenting on a race that’s out of my state, but I have to say that now that Lieberman has lost, it’s quite a gratifying spectacle.
The news coverage, often in subtle ways, manages to patronize anyone with an anti-war position, or anti-Lieberman vote. Take, for instance, the lede of Rick Klein’s piece […]
Matt Yglesias has been on a roll lately in his writing on the Iraq War - including the observation that the whole “timetable” progresses without once mentioning the permanent bases - so perhaps it’s redundant to mention his piece in the American Prospect asking the question no one else seems to be asking: how much […]
Matt Yglesias has been developing his critique of the liberal hawk "incompetence dodge" in his blogging, but he and Sam Rosenfeld have honed a trenchant critique up at American Prospect.
Liberalism has always been an idealistic doctrine, and should continue to be. But if high ideals become detached from basic questions of feasibility, they serve nothing […]
I told you it was a dumb question: Shiite Iraq overwhelmingly speaks Arabic, not Farsi. Confirmation comes via the Iraqi constitution-in-process and the State Department’s country profile. I guess that leaves open the question of if there is Shiite nationalist sentiment across the language divide, but from first glance, chances for separate nationalisms seem higher […]
With all these sensible sounding exit plans for Iraq being bandied about, I have a dumb question.
Why couldn’t Shiite Iraq unite with Iran? I don’t mean this in the normative sense of why shouldn’t they. Clearly, it’s against U.S. foreign policy interests, and I know I’d prefer theocratically flavored democratic government to an outright theocracy […]
After yesterday’s post, I should point out that Michael Kraig has a must-read post over at Democracy Arsenal on the Iraq War. He examines a couple of misguided assumptions about the war, including the notion that anti-Americanism is simple an escape valve for internal oppression.
I find on Democracy Arsenal (and other blogs) a […]
Exactly at what point might Bush supporters agree to an empirical test, to say that X fact really does show that the Iraq war was miserably, incompetently executed, that this is not all a figment of the liberal mainstream media’s imagination?
You’d think the al QaQaa missing explosives would be it. For if Bush is […]
My favorite line from last night, from Bush:
You can’t change the dynamics on the ground if you’ve criticized the brave leader of Iraq. One of his campaign people alleged that Prime Minister Allawi was like a puppet. That’s no way to treat somebody who’s courageous and brave, that is trying to lead his country forward.
The […]
Sometimes - often, really - someone expresses what your thinking so much better than you could do. Today, riffing off others’ writing, Henry at Crooked Timber writes,
Both Dan and Matt Yglesias provide us with empirical evidence that the number of insurgents in Iraq is snowballing. It’s a far cry from the ridiculous predictions of Andrew […]
Ryan Lizza has a good observation about the difference between elite conservatives and everyday Republicans that seems to be behind some of the declining poll numbers for Bush. Taking on Bruce Bartlett, he notes,
This seems like a ridiculous analysis, a kind of wishful thinking that conservative elites indulge in when they are confronted with the […]
Over at the New Republic, Ryan Lizza asks,
Remember the Iraq Stabilization Group? Unveiled with much ballyhoo back in October, it was seen as Condi Rice’s attempt to tear Iraq policy-making away from the fumbling Pentagon and centralize things at the White House.
You know, I had totally forgotten about that. One of the striking aspects of […]
From Jonah Goldberg at the National Review:
I was reading through a very interesting discussion at Instapundit on how the media is obsessed with Abu Ghraib, while Americans are concerned with Nick Berg — and it got me thinking…. when I look at the coverage — or lack thereof — of Nick Berg’s murder versus […]
Matt Yglesias quotes a pithy remark from Shibley Telhami: “We say we want democracy….I think our political elite wants democracy. I think even our leaders want democracy. But they want a lot of other things even more, and that’s the problem that we have in Iraq.”
It’s a good quote, but Yglesias’ gloss is even […]
More from David Warsh on the real causes of the Iraq war:
In basing the public case for its war in Iraq on what it described as an escalating threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration was following an old precept - to be persuasive, make your case as […]