A reader writes
Hey, Joe. How about addressing indications that the Bush Administration has employed the “Salvador” strategy to train death squads to take out militia leaders?
I certainly hope so. If ever there was an appropriate circumstance for covert action–in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere–it is the effort to find and eliminate …
Heartbreaking news from Iraq. Andi Parhamovich opposed the war, but still tried to make it succeed. When the Iraq war memorial is built, I certainly hope that her name is on it.
I’m a little new at this blogging business, and as a general principle, don’t think it’s a good idea to get baited. However, I’d like to clarify something:
The storm of comments on my initial post on the Senate ethics bill seem to have been generated by one on Atrios. The presumption of a lot of those comments seems to be that I was …
Uber-hawk Krauthammer against the surge. There’s a concensus growing for a U.S. pullout from the civil war in Baghdad toward a safer military posture. The big drawback: it will be easier for the Maliki-Sadr government to vamp on the Sunnis. Kraut’s right, though: there are no good options.
UPDATE: The ethics bill comes back from the dead in the Senate. The most important thing in this bill is the additional disclosure requirements that it puts on lobbyists and lawmakers, which will make it much harder for them to do favors for each other without anyone knowing about it.
Does this mean Congress will be squeaky clean from …
Katie Couric breaks news:
As I was looking at my colleagues around the room — Charlie Gibson, George Stephanopoulos, Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer, Wolf Blitzer, and Brit Hume — I couldn’t help but notice, despite how far we’ve come, that I was still the only woman there.
And people thought she wasn’t a real reporter!
Slate’s John Dickerson has been attending the Scooter Libby trial’s jury selection, and is bringing surprising life to a court case that most people — apparently those covering it as well — assume is over already:
We looked like the most boring patrons of the most boring sports bar in the world, deciphering the action on the screen
…
A number of readers, as well as other bloggers, have taken issue with my post about the “purge” of U.S. attorneys by the Bush Administration. What most of the criticism seems to miss is that I am not dismissing as “no big deal” either those resignations that truly were forced or the Patriot Act provision that gives the AG the power to …
This, from a reader:
Despite what the wingnuts will say, the least Iran-friendly Shiite political player of significance in Iraq today is Sadr. That’s not saying that he avoids all contact with any Iranian elements, but he’s much less tied to Tehran than other Iraqi political parties who depended on Iran’s support/shelter for many years …
Her position on Iraq is nuanced and responsible. Note this well:
“You don’t want to say there’s nobody within the Iraqi government who’s really committed to any nonsectarian future, but the weight of the evidence is that the people in charge are not committed that way,” she said. “At some point, how much are we willing to sacrifice if …
So much for the spirit of bipartisanship:
With the knowledge that neither Mr. Lieberman nor his supporters planned to take the reins, one of Mr. Lieberman’s loudest critics, John Orman, filed papers after the election with the secretary of state declaring himself chairman of the party. His rules stated that anyone who shared a name with
…
This is a great piece of journalism by Sabrina Tavernise. Earlier in the war, an announcement that the Iraqis were rolling up Sadr’s henchmen would be greeted with unqualified huzzahs from the press and Bush administration. Not anymore. This detail was especially telling:
In an interesting twist, the militia’s leadership has not visibly …
Two days ago, a Republican leadership aide in the Senate boasted to me that Republicans were going to “out-ethics” the Democrats in this week’s debate over a lobbying and ethics bill, by pushing reforms–including an amendment by South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint–that went well beyond what the Democrats were proposing. Instead, late …
