Small Wars Journal and assorted military bloggers are reporting that H.R. McMaster, one of the smartest and most creative colonels in the U.S. Army, has been passed over for promotion to brigadier general–a second time, I’m told by friends of the colonel. McMaster, who wrote an excellent book about the U.S. Army’s failure in Vietnam, [...]

Some interesting speculation from Iraqslogger about what else besides shouting happened at yesterday’s U.S.-Iran meeting. A joint US-Iraq-Iran effort to deal with Al Qaeda would be good news, even if it is ineffective, as it will likely be. Clearly, the U.S. wants to do some horse-trading with the five Iranian agents we seized in Erbil [...]

This item about the President’s YouTube allergy started me thinking…. Given the generally irreverent and, well, liberal tone of the questions last night–and the general skew of the YouTube audience leeward, do you think it’s possible that some of the Republican candidates are having second thoughts about participating in their version of the CNN/YouTube debate [...]

The arguments made in the New York Times today by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, former Clinton NSC officials, about the Pentagon’s bureaucratic incapacity to plan and execute small-scale anti-terrorist operations is persuasive enough. As the two of them note, despite the fact that the Special Operations Command budget has ballooned since 9/11, DOD too [...]

Well, I had doubts about it…but the youtube format was pretty good. The informality and the irreverence of questions was classicly American. The answer to Drudge’s mocking headline “Is This Any Way to Elect A President?” is: Hell, yeah. It’s a lot better than electing a President by having the Democratic candidate slimed via sleazy [...]

Where I’m not: 7:00 PM: That man’s facial hair does not represent my view. 7:01 PM: “We’re not sure how this is going to work,” says Anderson. CNN, your home for breaking news. 7:02 PM: Using kids to ask “adult questions” — I believe that’s someone on the Giuliani campaign’s job. 7:04 PM: FIRST QUESTION. [...]

Make impeachment an issue over the next 18 months…Including the impeachment of Nancy Pelosi! Allow the Jacobin–off with their heads!–wing of the party to control the agenda. Keep calling for votes on Iraq that will fail. Don’t call for votes on Iraq that might succeed (like the Salazar-Alexander Amendment). Even though the Republican field is [...]

Produce a Congressional agenda–like the Senate’s bipartisan children’s health coverage expansion–and allow the President to veto it. Produce other bipartisan bills–like the Salazar-Alexander amendment to incorporate the findings of the Iraq Study Group–that the President will also veto. I suspect there’s a bipartisan energy independence bill that the President will veto as well, at the [...]

Just in time for the resignation of “Trooper” Garrity, WikiHow’s How-to of the Day! How to Make a Citizen’s Arrest In many countries around the world, civilians are empowered to stop a perpetrator in the act of a serious crime and take the arrested to a courthouse or police station, or keep them from leaving [...]