Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Shoot the messenger?

According to an article in today's New York Times, U.S. officials in Iraq say that Iraqi forces supporting the Alawi government are foundering under rebel assaults, rather than growing stronger as per the visualized "Iraqification" of our side in the struggle there.
It's obvious what the Bush Administration must do - fire those U.S. officials who are talking off-message to the press, while declining to address the actual problem. At least, this would follow under their approach to CIA reform, which is to fire people who were 30% wrong so that the President can be advised exclusively by those who were and remain 100% wrong.
I am trying to keep this blog above the partisan fray, in the sense that I don't especially like either party and that I despise the approach to blogging (or scholarship or journalism) where one serves as an echo chamber for some political faction's message of the day. But staying above the fray would have been a lot easier under Reagan or Bush Sr., both of whom were grown-ups, interested in solving problems including through bipartisanship, than it is with the current crew.

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