• A New York Times Op-Ed deconstruction

    A week ago I wrote about an article I’d read about progress being made in Iraq. There was a New York Times op-ed by a couple folks from the Brookings Institution around that same time, with similar conclusions, which I had not read. I did read the press generated from the White House, holding this NYT op-ed by alleged “war detractors,” as real evidence of progress in Iraq.

    The argument made a certain amount of sense… after all, it seems apparent the editorial board of NYT doesn’t carry a lot of love for the POTUS and his middle east adventures.

    I was perusing a blog this evening, and I happened upon a link to this article at Salon.com.

    Here’s a couple of interesting tidbits pointed out by the article (based on an interview with the authors of the NYT op-ed piece in question):

    1. Both authors of the NYT piece were proponents of the war at it’s inception, AND were proponents of the “surge.” They were not, as the White House suggested, “war critics” through and through.

    2. The observations made by the authors in the NYT piece came from extremely brief, arranged, and wholly controlled tours and interviews arranged by the Department of Defense.

    To be fair, I wouldn’t be up for a self-guided tour of Iraq… but then, I’m not holding myself out to be an unbiased observer of events there. It’s seems to me the DOD just might have an agenda where Iraq is concerned.

    What’s more likely? The DOD takes the press around detailing all of their failures and missteps, showing just how terribly things are going (contrary to the message being put forth by their commander in chief)… or they put their best faces forward, knowing General Petraeus is due to give his progress report to Congress… in a bout a month?

    After all the recent events in the news, is it unreasonable to assume that the message from the DOD is politically polished, if not scripted by the White House?

  • The first time I can recall agreeing with Dick Cheney

  • Rudy Redux

    A reader on newsvine claiming to be an authentic New Yorker suggested this article in The American Prospect:

    “In Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton’s new book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, the investigative panel’s bipartisan leaders confess that their greatest single failing was the pass they gave America’s mayor when he appeared before them in 2004.”

    I always thought one of Rudy’s unimpeachable positives coming out of 9/11 was the manner in which he managed the crisis itself, however:

    Some of the 9-11 family leaders who have raised the most troubling issues about the city’s preparations have vowed to stalk him in the primary states…. They hold Giuliani himself responsible for the decision that morning to split the police and fire command posts, when the first rule of emergency response is unified command. Their separation contributed to communication gaps that every official inquiry has said caused casualties.

    I’d say that Rudy should get a pass on all of this, given that it was an unexpected attack, of unprecedented horror (in the modern, via satellite era). However, Rudy invites this kind of scrutiny (making it perfectly appropriate) because the primary reason he’s giving voters to elect him is the manner in which he manages crises (like 9/11).