Friday, August 25, 2006

The last defender

When Slate's Mickey Kaus chooses to emphasize this clause from Michael Hirsh's review of Peter Galbraith's book advocating the partition of Iraq --

If [breakup] was inevitable anyway, then how can you blame this outcome on the incompetence of the American occupation [?]

he should be clear that this is a critique of Galbraith's premise about inevitable breakup, and not, as he seems to be pitching it, a defence of George W. Bush. As Hirsh says,

the disastrous errors made in invading and occupying Iraq are already confirmed historical fact. They are disputed by no responsible or knowledgeable person, outside of a small circle of Kool-Aid sippers in the White House --

and coyly, by one Kool-Aid sipper on a beach in Santa Monica.

UPDATE 29 AUGUST: More evidence of spinning for Bush on Iraq --

One wonders if the Washington players are now so locked into the hell-in-a-handbasket Iraq story line--in large part because the polls support it--that they are incapable of grokking a promising trend in the news --

written in this context.

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