Does anyone see a teensy, tinsy, minor error in the last paraggraph of this EDITORIAL 9Note, NOT an op-ed, but an actual, this is what our best and brightest think, EDITORIAL)?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/opinion/30thu3.html?ex=1346212800&en=5771d1b2efbc93eb&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Can we agree yet that there is significant military AND political progress in Iraq?

And even if you answer "no" (and I don't see how you could), can we agree that this is a good thing (from frontpagemag.com):

IRAQIS REACH AGREEMENT ON REFORMS

By Ed Morrissey

It looks like the Iraqi political leadership remained on the job during their August recess. Representatives of all main sects in Iraq announced agreement on the most contentious issues, including a deal to initiate revenue sharing on oil production that concerned the American Congress most (via Power Line):

Iraq's top Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders announced on Sunday they had reached consensus on some key measures seen as vital to fostering national reconciliation. read more »

At the risk of re-igniting Expat's passions on the subject, I'll point out that National Review has an interesting analysis today of Richardson's campaign to date.

As a side note, maybe Expat will respect NR a bit more now that he's been called a "tuned-in Democratic activist" in its (e-)pages (see penultimate graf). Ha!

For years, The New Republic stood out for me as a place to go to hear reasoned, reasonable, well-articulated discourse from those to the left of me that I could respect. And until recently, Franklin Foer was nothing more to me than the author of an immensely enjoyable and educational, if slightly mistitled book, How Soccer Explains the World.

But I won't be buying any of Foer's books anymore. And as for The New Republic...well, they've now been consigned, in my book, to the heap of sources I now must discount as questionable (although they'd probably call the company good in that heap, since they're there with fellow fabricators the New York Times, CBS News, and NBC news). read more »

This time it's noted Bush-worshippers Dick Durbin, Bob Casey, Jack Reed, and Carl Levin:

Democrats praise military progress

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 8, 7:33 PM ET

WASHINGTON - One senator said U.S. troops are routing out al-Qaida in parts of Iraq. Another insisted President Bush's plan to increase troops has caused tactical momentum.

One even went so far on Wednesday as to say the argument could be made that U.S. troops are winning.

These are not Bush-backing GOP die-hards, but Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed. Even Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee, said progress was being made by soldiers. read more »

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has been mercilessly hammering John Kerry recently for his statement that there was no bloodbath in Southeast Asia after the US exited Vietnam. On Saturday, the Journal (and its opinion website, opinionjournal.com) published a letter from Kerry defending his statement (http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010427). And today, Taranto, in a brilliant stroke, has allowed readers to respond, line by line, to Kerry's letter (http://opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010435).

The responses themselves are striking, for the most part, in both their clearheadedness and in their civility (though a couple are a bit combative in tone). I wonder if these characteristics are due to Taranto's choices, to the demographics of WSJ readers, or due to constitutional differences between thinking conservatives and thinking liberals. I have long held that while unthinking noisy gongs on both sides are obnoxious, that the thinking conservatives tend to be much more reasonable and accommodating than their liberal counterparts (present website company excluded, of course). At any rate, I don't think the editors of The New Republic or The Nation (or The New York Times/LA Times/other major papers, or CBS/NBC/ABC/MSNBC/CNBC/PBS/NPR) would have gotten the quality of responses shown here. More tellingly, I'm not sure it would have occurred to them to seek those responses. read more »

Two well-known, well-respected Brookings analysts (who, in addition, have been harsh, vocal critics of Bush's actions in Iraq) have published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled "A War We Just Might Win".

Their point seems to be exactly what I've been saying -- that the surge is a huge early success, that Petraeus knows what he's doing, and that the tide is turning decisively in our favor.

Once again, I'm not asking anyone to agree, but it's increasingly difficult to say that position is ridiculous and not sound ridiculous yourself. read more »

...Victor Davis Hanson is God. And he's doing nothing to quell my shameless man-crush on him. Check out his latest column.

I don't believe he's making many friends on the right or the left.

Here's the money graf:

"After four years of effort in Iraq, Americans may well tire of that cost and bring Gen. Petraeus and the troops home. We can then go back to the shorter-term remedies of the past. Well and good.

But at least remember what that past policy was: Democratic appeasement of terrorists, interrupted by cynical Republican business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes." read more »

The National Journal (which, along with my own CQ Press are the two Bibles of the Beltway) has a new poll out showing DC insider's predictions on who will win the GOP nimination. It's a dead heat between Giuliani and -- surprise! -- Romney. I'm telling you, if you think Romney has no chance, you've got your head in the sand.

I'll repeat a comment I made on another post:

Now, I don't expect everyone will agree with me that Romney is the favorite, but how can you consider the strong Republican leader in Iowa and New Hampshire "a long shot at best"? Who was the last Repub that won those two and didn't get the nomination? And who was the last Republican nominee that was "a long shot at best" in the general? Some rational analysis, please.

Anyone? Anyone?

It seems obvious by now that, only one month in, the surge is already producing amazingly positive results in Iraq. See, among many others, this article in today's Wall Street Journal. In fact, I don't think I've seen a single negative post-surge analysis (and believe me, if the evidence was there the MSM would be trumpeting it loudly).

So here's my question -- regardless of whether you think we should have gone to Iraq in the first place, to what standard should the surge be held? What results will prove to you that it was a wise choice? read more »

I realize that I am much more supportive of the War in Iraq than most on this site, as well as most political pundits. But that's not my point today. I also realize that my estimation of the public's support for the War in Iraq is much higher than that of most political pundits. In fact, as I've written before, I believe that there is very little chance that a candidate who opposes the war will be elected president. Now I've got some interesting company -- no other than George McGovern.

Regardless of your own attitude towards the war, how do you think its impact will play out electorally in 2008?

With several former (including myself) and current teachers floating around this space, I'd be interested to hear reactions to this paragraph from Mickey Kaus' blog:

Is "merit pay" for good teachers nearly as important as making it easier to get rid of mediocre teachers? (You want to get hissed, tell that to the NEA.) In the successful organizations I've worked for, the positive incentives (in the form of unequal pay) weren't nearly as powerful as disincentives (in the form of fear that you might get fired if you didn't do your part). For one thing, negative incentives are highly compatible with teamwork. They get the whole organization going, including people who'll never be hot enough to get performance bonuses. They don't breed envy and backstabbing. read more »

Disclaimer: Mitt Romney is not my candidate, at least not yet. This post is not meant to introduce a discussion of Romney per se; it's meant to introduce a larger discussion.

What do you think of the charge of flip-flopping as a criticism for a politician? I find the area fascinating for several reasons. First, that charge seems to be greatly feared by candidates, greatly focused on by the media, and hardly considered at all by voters (I don't have the data at my fingertips, but polls back this up). Patrick Ruffini's blog today suggests that presidential candidates tend to govern by the flop and not the flip: "If you look at history, how candidates run -- regardless of what they believed earlier in their career -- is how they govern once they win." Which would make the public's shrugging at flip-flop charges actually quite rational. read more »

Here's a litmus test I sometimes use to give me an idea of whether someone on the left is reasonable. Can we end the debate about mainstream media bias? Please? Can we just all agree that the vast, vast majority of reporters lean left? And isn't it difficult to imagine that if you were working in a career that aspired to change the world and bring down the mighty, and you were surrounded nearly exclusively by people who shared your left leanings, it might -- just might -- make your reporting lean left significantly?

And most importantly, if all of that is true, how can any of us trust the information we're getting? read more »

Is there any other issue in contemporary politics that's treated this way?

Side A: We've got a major problem here -- millions of people are committing Crime X.

Side B: You're right. Let's start enforcing the laws we already have that make Crime X illegal.

Side A: Don't be ridiculous. What we need to do is exonerate anyone who's ever committed Crime X.

Side B: Um...okay, but can we at least build a wall that will make it harder to commit Crime X in the future? And maybe punish the people that are hiring the people to commit Crime X?

Side A: Oh hell no. But I'll tell you what -- you can create a program that gives people a way to do basically the same thing as Crime X, but legally. And it will only cost $5000! read more »

This one should be fun. I hear an awful lot of criticism of Bush's foreign policy from both the right and the left, but what I seldom hear is any coherent alternative vision. My contention is that, whatever errors were made in the planning of the post-invasion Iraq, the Bush Doctrine is fundamentally sound. To wit, we were attacked on 9/11 by a terrorist organization with no borders, no diplomats, no uniformed personnel. The only way this organization exists as an effective force is with the shelter and succor of rogue regimes. So we gave notice that anyone offering shelter and succor to the enemies who attacked us would be considered enemies as well, and proceeded to enforce that principle on Afghanistan and Iraq. read more »

...what a rational, reasonable, stunningly intelligent supporter of the War in Iraq has to say about it, I strongly urge you to read Victor Davis Hanson's piece in National Review Online.

Hanson founded the Classics Department at Cal-Fresno and is an expert on military history. He's also certainly no shill for Bush, as NRO fans know.

I sincerely doubt anyone here will change anyone's mind on the Iraq war, at least not anytime soon. But it's good for both sides to look beyond their stereotypes about their opponents and see a reasonable case being made.