Unqualified Offerings

Best Anecdote Ever comes from Jesse Walker.

item contrasting Tom Delay on Nancy Pelosi now with Tom Delay on the Kosovo War then. These kinds of things come up – Atrios has a minor sideline in such things. There’s a valid point there, but I’m never sure it’s the one the posters are making. Delay was within his rights back then, Pelosi [...]

The Media Really Does Suck – I suspect that much of what the military high command tried to tell us about the “wedding party assault” of last week is a crock. But there’s no excuse for the egregious misquoting identified by Iraq Now. (Via Obsidian Wings.)

29,996 Liters to Go – Well, I’ll be. It really was Sarin in last week’s artillery shell.
In battle, such shells would have to be fired in great numbers to effect a large body of troops.
I wonder if we could do some kind of weapons buy-back program, where we swap Sarin-filled artillery shells for the real [...]

Knock the Vote – Jacob Levy and Matt discuss the possibilities of a libertarian revolt against the Republican Party this fall – that is, libertarians actually voting for the Libertarian candidate.
Matt thinks libertarians voting Libertarian is actually a good idea, and I like his reasoning:
The case for the LP is that no one really knows [...]

Spider Hole of Redemption – At the American Prospect website, Matthew Yglesias points out that, well, Crazy Howard turned out to be right about the capture of Saddam Hussein not making Americans safer. Matt:
But why bring this up today? Just to brag? Well, yes, to brag a little, but for a more important reason as [...]

Now They Tell Us, the Continuing Story – The New York Times gets introspective:
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too [...]

Get It Over With – You can register for the upcoming draft online, and better. (Via the Agitator.)

Left as an Exercise for the Reader – Interesting story from the Associated Press:
Baker was a member of the Kentucky National Guard from 1989 through 1997 and re-enlisted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In the interview, Baker said that as part of the training drill, he was given an orange detainee jumpsuit to wear and [...]

make the most sense considered as components of a strategy to downplay the human and financial cost and level of effort in advance. Plus, as we are learning, we only have so many troops to go around.
Still, Zinni’s list isn’t bad, and he does get the big thing right.